Sustainable development, immersion and gamification

Abstract

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Educational innovation and new teaching methodologies in Engineering are becoming commonplace and an incipient way of modifying the student learning and assessment model. In this case, the transformation of a university master's degree subject is proposed through the implementation of the methodology of Project-Based Learning (PBL) summative assessment (SA) and formative assessment (FA). The subject to transformation, Sustainable Development, is transversal for the master's degree in Industrial Engineering and deals with three fundamental topics: a) Climate change and sustainable transition. b) Sustainability and business. c) Circular Economy. The innovation combines the master class with PBL carried out in the classroom as the contents are developed, and a final group activity that serves as an evaluation and the traditional written tests. The proposed activity is a meeting of sectoral roundtables convened by a government to transpose the new European Circular Economy Directive. Different economic sectors must seek, separately and together, strategies beneficial to each sector, obtain a common position and reach fair and sustainable legislative proposals. In this way, the three main blocks of the subject (a), (b) and (c) are covered. 139 A distinction is made between regular classroom sessions and a joint final session for decision-making. The students are divided into different groups for classroom sessions, each corresponding to an economic or productive sector. Within each sector, each student assumes the role of coordinator, secretary, documentalist or spokesperson. In these sessions, each group must elaborate on its individual position and consult between sectors if there are dependencies, always supervised by the teacher. Deliverables are extracted from these sessions at the end of these sessions, from which feedback is provided and serves as FA. The final joint session aims to negotiate between sectors to seek common agreements and proposals. It takes place in a special collaborative space that allows you to work in large groups and present in an immersive room. Each sector presents its proposals, a negotiation moderated by the teacher begins, and final agreements are sought and reached. From this session, the individual presentations of each group and a joint participation note that serves the SA are extracted as deliverables. As a result of this experience, it is observed that, in PBL sessions, the work in cooperative groups with differentiated roles enhances the interaction promotion between the groups, generating a positive interdependence but with individual responsibility. As for the final joint session, the promoter interaction is favoured in terms of the exchange of opinions and strategies, reciprocal help and stimulation of efforts and positive interdependence with respect to the external rival. As objective indicators to evaluate the effectiveness of PBL expertise, we use class attendance and final exam scores. By including these activities, attendance at 100% of the sessions goes from 85% in previous years (20/21 and 21/22) to 97% in the years of study (22/23 and 23/24). As for the grade on the final exam, in previous years, the average was around 6.5/10. After this experience, it shifts to 9.5/10. In conclusion, it is recommended to include this type of activity both in class and in the assessment. Students rate it very positively, explore and learn about new ways of learning, and the assessment improves objectively.