A Course of Thermodynamics for an Industrial Engineering Degree using New Methodologies and Technologies

Abstract

This paper presents the experience carried out at the Industrial Engineering School (ETSII) of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) for teaching Thermodynamics science using new methodologies and technologies. During the last two years a special course on Thermodynamics has been given to those students who failed to pass the ordinary examination. This group was made of around thirty students with some level of knowledge of the subject. Nontraditional teaching methodologies have been applied to this group stretching the potential of new technologies to the maximum possible extent. A complete e-learning system developed by our University called Aula Web was used to produce a weekly schedule for each individual student. Aula Web consists of several modules. News and Forum channel the communications with the student.“Contents” is a repository holding various types of learning material such us presentations, theoretical texts and problems with solutions. “Activities” assigns homework to the student who can submit it electronically. Finally, “Self-assessment” composes bespoke self-assessment tests resorting to a wide database of questions and short problems. A totally personalized long problem was programmed using MATLAB. The problem is structured in ten steps that help the student to progress towards his/her learning target. Upon conclusion of the learning program the student should have acquired all foreseen knowledge of the subject. Observed results are very satisfactory. Throughout the whole process the level of motivation of the students has been very high. The Universidad Politécnica de Madrid supports education innovation experiences through special programs whose main target is the convergence at the European Higher Education Space.