Degree in Interactive Technologies: a Project-Based Degree
Academic Qualification
Degree in Interactive Technologies
Centre
Higher Polytechnic School of Gandia
Work Team
- José Fco. Toledo Alarcón (Degree DAT and Coordinator of the 3A semester project, Professor of Department of Electronic Engineering)
- Mª Asunción Pérez Pascual (Coordinator of the 1A and 3B semester projects, Professor of Department of Electronic Engineering)
- José Luis Giménez López (Coordinator of the project of 1B semester, PhD Assistant Professor of Department of Graphic Expression in Engineering)
- Jesús Tomás Gironés (Coordinator of the 2A semester project, Professor of Department of Communications)
- Daniel Palacio Samitier (Coordinator of the 2B semester project, Associate Professor of Department of Audiovisual Communication, Documentation and Art History)
Introduction
The Degree in Interactive Technologies is the first degree course to be entirely based on projects at a Spanish public university, which dedicates 40% of the teaching load to projects from the first year on. It is taught at the Higher Polytechnic School of Gandia, at the Gandia Campus of the Polytechnic University of Valencia.
Each semester has an interdisciplinary project in which a product related to that semester’s subject matter is developed in groups of four or five people:
- Semester 1A: Monitoring of environmental parameters applied to agricultural automation
- Semester 1B: Creation of a web application for the control of the system designed in the previous semester
- Semester 2A: Internet of Things
- Semester 2B: Videogames
- Semester 3A: Biometrics and Environmental Control
- Semester 3B: Robotics
- Semester 4A: Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality
Each semester, 40% of the teaching hours are devoted to the project (except for the first semester, when it takes up 20%). At the same time, subjects are taught either in support of the project or to develop essential basic contents for the degree.
Why do we do this?
Our experience of more than 20 years in teaching other university degrees has led us to the conviction that technology students do not assimilate all the knowledge provided by the different subjects until they reach the end of their studies. This makes many of them feel overwhelmed and frustrated; many even drop out of their studies in the early years. Besides, we are strong advocates of "learning by doing".
Objective
Our main objective is to develop a curriculum that generates graduates capable of conceiving, designing, implementing and operating technological products that have some kind of interactivity by using different hardware platforms and programming languages.
Furthermore, using project-based learning as a general methodology for the degree gives us the opportunity to develop the 13 transversal competences of the UPV project in a natural way, entirely integrated in the degree subjects.
Methodology
All our projects include the four phases in the development process of a new product (CDIO):
- The conception phase, for development of creativity techniques, technological monitoring, and also study of different business models.
- The design phase, which includes workshops related to different technologies and design tools.
- The implementation phase, in which students deploy the product and test it.
- And finally, the operation phase, dedicated to drawing up documentation, instructions manual, etc.
In addition, we use the Scrum project management methodology, which is characterised by:
- Division of the semester into two or three-week sprints. In each sprint, the work team chooses the features to be implemented.
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A series of meetings are held:
- Sprint planning: at the beginning of each sprint, so that the group can plan the sprint.
- Daily sprint: daily meeting for team members to share the work that has been done.
- Sprint review: at the end of the sprint, with the aim to perform a public demonstration of the features implemented in that sprint.
- Sprint restrospective: meeting of the group to reflect on how they have performed.
Evaluation and Results
The principal evidence of improvement is that student motivation remains high throughout the semester, not giving rise to the levels of dropout and non-attendance detected in similar degree studies that do not use ABP/AOP (learning based on or oriented towards projects).
The academic results are similar to those of other degrees. It is too early to make a more in-depth analysis, as this learning experience has been going on for a short time.
Conclusion
The success of this type of experience depends on the teaching team. It is essential that:
- The objectives of the teachers are aligned with those of the degree.
- They have experience in the subject matter of the projects.
- They use evaluation rubrics so that students know beforehand what will be required in each sprint.
- They use collaborative work tools through which students' work can be monitored closely.
References
Marín-Roig J., Pérez-Pascual A. y Toledo, J. F., ”Nuevo Diseño de Estudios de Ingeniería para el Siglo XXI”, Congreso INNODOC 2017, Valencia, October 25-27, 2017.
