Active learning in teaching of engineering methods: an experience at CEFET/RJ

Abstract

This paper aims to describe and evaluate the active learning experience carried out in the discipline “Engineering Methods” of the Production Engineering Course at the Federal Centre for Technological Education Celso Suckow da Fonseca (Cefet/RJ). Group dynamics was the adopted strategy to develop a better method, using the board and pegs of the game “Peg Solitaire”. It is an applied research with descriptive goal, based on bibliographic data and on active, direct and systematic observation of the experience, with the help of a questionnaire, which included both open and closed questions. The research was conducted with two classes during the year of 2015, involving 57 participating students. The dynamics combined typical aspects of the games, the simulations and aspects of team-based learning. It was considered to be fully satisfactory by the students, both in terms of generated motivation and in terms of its importance for the discipline and the course, suggesting its future implementation with other classes. The use of active learning strategies favors the development of skills under a wide perspective, which is, without any doubt, the most common and important pre-requisite of the job market nowadays.