Flipped classroom and educational videos to improve the cybersecurity competencies in future computer engineers

Resumen

The incredible evolution of computer engineering technologies in the last years is a major challenge for professors in areas such as robotics, artificial intelligence, or cybersecurity. Specifically, cybersecurity students must acquire generic but very technical competencies, using commercial technologies. As a potential solution, we think that a flipped classroom methodology, together with educational videos which can be freely accessed by students and where contents are explained as brief pills according to a vertical approach may attenuate this challenging situation. Therefore, during the second term of the year 2019/20 in the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, a pilot experience has been conducted. In this experience, the main objective is to maximize the practical content of subjects, so students may acquire top Bloom’s taxonomy competencies in the competitive area of cybersecurity. Students were evaluated through a global project, a presentation, and a technical discussion. The final purpose is students to be able to justify and reason the proposed technical design and their decisions. Results showed that students’ satisfaction highly increased and their academic results also went up in a very relevant manner.