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THE APPLICATION OF EDUCATIONAL METHODOLOGIES TO
OVERCOME CRITICAL ISSUES IN A PROJECT BASED LEARNING
Javier García, Pilar Manzano, Jorge E. Pérez, Isabel Muñoz
Department of Applied Computer Science, Technical University of Madrid
Madrid/Spain
{jgarcia,pmanzano,jeperez,imunoz}@eui.upm.es
Abstract
In the context of the European Higher Education Space, we have started a project-based learning
methodology for teaching and evaluation purposes in the Real Time Systems (RTS) course.
Nowadays this methodology is acquiring more presence in engineering fields. In this work we discuss
how to use different educational methodologies to assure success in learning RTS concepts through a
project development and we explain what steps we followed in designing the educational plan of the
course. We first present the ideas on which we based the work organization and then we show how to
apply these ideas to the RTS project.
The project to be developed by students along the term is divided into several tasks. We first analyze
the learning activities demanded by each task. Then we can order these tasks according to priorities
and define critical points in the project. We refer as critical points to those tasks where students find
more difficulty to develop their work or tasks that are particularly important to reach goals. On the
other hand, we review the benefits obtained from every teaching-learning methodology implemented.
The goal of the present study is to choose the educational methodology more appropriate in each
project stage, giving more priority to critical points.
In this paper we present the steps followed to design the educational plan of this course and the
criteria used for this purpose. The correct application of the selected methodologies is assumed to
improve the results of every activity developed during the term. On one hand, the student will benefit
from the learning process and, on the other, the teacher will get a more efficient use of his/her time.
The study ends with the presentation of an analysis of the hours dedicated to each activity by the
students and the teacher.
Keywords
Project-based learning, cooperative learning, portfolio, real time systems, ECTS.
1. INTRODUCTION
We will start to use the project-based learning methodology in the Real Time Systems course, taught
in the second term of the academic year 2006-2007. The set of work sessions programmed for the
project development will be supported by other educational methodologies in order to assure success
and to improve some transversal competences.
The RTS course is an optional course taught in the second year of the Computer Science Technical
Engineer career (both in Systems and Management specialities) in the Technical University of Madrid.
This course is assigned 4 ECTS. The goal of this course is the study of theory principles, techniques
and tools needed for the construction of a RTS. This makes it appropriate to establish a project-based
learning methodology. Among the different learning projects [1], we have selected a constructive type
project, where we propose a specific task. We will propose the development of a practical and realistic
project covering most of the contents from the course, and organize the learning and evaluation
process of the student around it.
Besides the formative goals already mentioned, we have established some other goals about
transversal competences. So, the student should develop capabilities for analysis and synthesis,
solving problems, team work, organization, information management, oral and written expression, and
quality and improvement search.
We hope that this model for teaching-learning can help students by training them in constructive
learning (as opposed to learning to pass the exam), increasing their motivation, improving their ability
to acquire knowledge, enhancing their understanding of course concepts, increasing their knowledge
level and obtaining greater intellectual satisfaction.
For the project development we have established six milestones that will serve as control points and
continuous evaluation of student progress. Each milestone is associated to a practical task from those
programmed along the whole term to develop the project. The idea is to apply a set of educational
methodologies in the programmed work sessions. Some of these methodologies are: cooperative
learning, portfolio, oral presentations by students and group tutoring, besides lectures and lab
sessions. With these techniques, we hope to assure the successful completion of the project and favor
the transversal competences previously mentioned.
The goal of the present study is to choose the educational methodology most appropriate for each
practical task, giving higher priority to those considered critical points in the project. This way we hope
to finish the project successfully as well as obtain a good and efficient use of time for both students
and teacher.
In the current bibliography we can find many references describing the benefits of construction
learning [2], [3], [4], [5] y [6]. References [3], [4] and [5] include the characteristics that a good project
must have. In [6] there is a proposal for work organization and the corresponding documentation.
Some educational methodologies show advantages both in the learning process and the development
of transversal competences. In this sense, the portfolio [7] appears as a useful tool allowing the
student reflection about his/her own learning process. Cooperative learning [8], [9] and [10] is an
efficient and dynamic method for the student. This work focuses on efficiently applying these
methodologies as well as some classical ones to project development.
2. DESIGN OF THE COURSE EDUCATIONAL PLAN
To design an educational plan for our RTS course we followed a process with 7 steps:
1. Splitting the project into parts.
2. Describing practical task characteristics from a methodological perspective.
3. Measuring the difficulty of each practical task.
4. Defining the activities required for each practical task.
5. Reviewing the abilities improved by every educational methodology.
6. Assigning the most appropriate methodology to each activity.
7. Evaluating the time consumed by student and teacher.
Following, we will describe each step in the plan. We will start with a general description of the
process and afterwards we will give details of its application to the particular case of the RTS course.
The resulting educational plan will be applied in the second term of the current academic year 2006-
2007, which will be useful for a first validation of the process.
2.1 Splitting the project into parts
For this stage, we took as a reference the set of steps proposed by [1]:
1. Situation discovery.
2. Definition and formulation of the project.
3. Planning and data acquisition.
4. Execution.
5. Evaluation.
Based on these steps, we have divided the project into six practical tasks (P1 to P6), each of them
generating a testable result. It should be noted that there is not an exact correlation between these
steps and the practical tasks established in the course. In our case, steps 1 to 3 are covered by
practical tasks P1 and P2, step 4 corresponds to practical tasks P3 to P5, and step 5 corresponds to
P6. The chart given in Figure 1 shows relationships between practical tasks and theoretical contents
of the course (T1 to T8), and between tasks.
We consider that for this stage it has been very important the past experience with individual practical
work. In the previous courses (without project-based learning) we did practical tasks with similar
contents but independent from one another. This experience helps estimating the students work load
and knowing the difficulties that they can find. In general, knowing previously each project stage eases
the success of the project as a whole.
In task P1, once studied the introduction of the course, the student should propose a sample system
with the typical characteristics of a real time system. The teacher will try to debug the proposals of
students, so that they can be used as practical cases for project-based learning. In task P2, students
will implement a multitask program in the Ada language. This task will help the student to understand
the structure of a program for a real time system, as a first approach to the subject of programming
real time systems. The code developed will serve as the base for the later implementation of the
project.
In task P3, students design a project using the HRT-HOOD methodology. In P4 they implement the
code of their case of study according to the design proposed in P3, starting with the skeleton of the
program from task P2. Task P5 will consist of a schedulability analysis. Finally, in P6 students will put
together all the information about the project developed, for its presentation and evaluation.
2.2 Describing task characteristics from a methodological perspective
In this stage we describe the type of work that the student has to do for the development of each task.
This description will not include any technical aspects, since we assume they are included in the
corresponding handout. Instead, this description will highlight aspects related to the previous
experience of students in this type of work, the complexity of the subject and tools they need to know,
the importance of the tasks to reach the goals or the difficulty of the theoretical concepts required.
We believe it is interesting to obtain student feedback along the term (through surveys) to see if their
perception of the coursework is what we expected. For this purpose, we use the portfolio technique to
Figure 1. Theory contents and practical tasks plan.
T5.- Scheduling in RTS.
Course Presentation.
T1.a.- Introduction.
T1.b.- Introduction to Ada95.
T2.-Concurrent
Programming in Ada95.
T4.- Real Time Design.
HRT-HOOD.
P2.- Multitask Program in Ada95.
P4.- Project Implementation.
T6.- Describing RTS.
P6.- Project Documentation and
presentation.
T3.- Real Time Facilities
Programming.
P1.- RTS Examples Proposal.
P3.- Project Design.
P5.- Schedulability Analysis.
T7.- Fault Tolerance.
T8.- High Integrity Systems
include in every practical task some reflection of students about what parts required more effort and
what difficulties they found.
Following, we summarize the description of practical tasks used in our course.
P1: The student needs to know some basic and very simple theoretical concepts. From them, he/she
should start looking for information, thinking about that information and defining clearly the system that
he/she proposes. Although this last task is not conceptually difficult, we know that it requires some
more work due to the lack of experience of students with it. This task is very important, since the rest
of the work is going to develop around the system that we are defining here.
P2: It consists of a programming task in a concurrent environment. Although the language used is new
for students, they are used to this type of practical assignments, and they usually do not have much
problem. Students need more theoretical contents than for P1, but the difficulty is not too high. The
code they have to implement is highly guided in the task handout. Students dedicate most of the time
to test and debug errors of the program. Since usually it is the first time that they use the Ada
language, teacher tutoring can be of great value to solve small problems and doubts about their lab
work.
P3: Students have to do a creative design work. In previous courses, they have not done much similar
work, so that they are somewhat lost. It is very important to know clearly the theoretical concepts on
which this task is supported to be able to use them. It is convenient to have the teacher supervise the
design as they do it, as well as debate with them the proposed solution. The result of this task is going
to have a lot of influence in the complexity that they will find in the development of P4 and P5. This is
why it is so important to assure a certain level of quality in their design.
P4: If the student understood well task P2 and did a good design in P3, this task will not have much
difficulty. It mainly consists of some programming work. Most of the effort will be on testing and
debugging program errors in the laboratory. The teacher could be of great help in the design of tests
for the program.
P5: This is the milestone that requires the greatest theoretical knowledge in the course. The student
should dedicate enough time to study the material needed for the analysis of the system. It is also
important for the student to have some ability to solve problems. For the presentation of results, the
student will use a software tool not very difficult to use, but he/she will need to use it with some ease
so that it does not present an inconvenience in the task development.
P6: This task consists of a final report where the student should provide a global view of his/her
project, think about the work done and analyze the results. In this stage, we try to give students the
opportunity to debate and do a final valuation of the project. The student should work on management,
documentation and presentation of the information obtained. Although students usually do not have
much experience writing reports, we do not consider it of great difficulty, since the written expression
is a natural medium for them.
2.3 Measuring the difficulty of each practical task
In this stage we order the tasks by difficulty and we establish the critical points. We call critical points
to those milestones where students find more difficulties to develop their work. These difficulties may
be conceptual or methodological. Conceptual difficulties are due to the complexity or amount of
material that the student has to manage. Methodological difficulties are due to the complexity of the
tools or methods that the student has to use. Besides, a milestone corresponding to the completion of
a very important task (like one required to follow the project) may also constitute a critical point.
In our case, we have determined as critical points P1 and P3. In the case of P1, this is due to the
dependence of the remaining practical tasks from it. In the case of P3, the reason is the little
experience that students of the second year have in software systems design. This lack of experience
makes the realization of this task very difficult for them. Additionally, it is very important to obtain a
design with a certain quality in order to facilitate the development of the next milestones. The
remaining tasks have been ordered by difficulty as follows: P5, P2, P4 and P6.
2.4 Defining the learning activities required for each practical task
For each practical task we specify the main types of learning activity that the student has to do for its
development. Previously, we need to establish a list with the types of activities that we will consider.
This list has been developed based on our own experience observing the work that students had to do
to complete the tasks in previous years. So, this list is open to activities developed in other contexts.
Study: Significant learning of the course concepts. By significant learning we mean that the
concepts should be understood and connected to previous knowledge
Reflection: Maturing certain information or studied material in order to establish some conclusions
and results.
Testing: Designing and developing tests and debugging errors to get something working. In our
case we will work with programs, designs or analysis results.
Information management: Given some premises and goals, students have to search, compile,
process and present information about a subject.
Debate: Discussion with other people to share ideas and obtain some conclusions.
Tutoring: Meeting with other people, usually the teacher or team mates, to clarify concepts and
do work supervision.
Starting from the task description from section 2.3, we establish the activities needed for each task
(see the upper part of Table 1). In this table, practical tasks are ordered. First, we have the tasks
considered as critical points (P1 and P3), and next we include the remaining tasks ordered by priority
(P5, P2, P4 and P6).
Study Reflection Testing Information
management
Debate Tutoring
P1 * * *
P3 * * *
P5 * * * *
P2 * *
P4 * *
P6 * * *
Max. No.
Sessions
Cooperative
Learning
+
+
2
Group
Tutoring
+
3
Oral
Presentation
+
+
2
Laboratory
Session
+
+
4
Lecture
+
+
8
Written
Evaluation
+
+
2
Portfolio
+
+
-
2.5 Reviewing the abilities improved by every educational methodology
First we select the educational methodologies that we will use along the term. This selection is
different for every organization and there are several aspects intervening. Among them, we will have
to consider the number of students, the size of the class and laboratory spaces or teacher’s
preferences.
Table 1. Activities in each practical task. Activities improved by each educational methodology.
We decided to consider the following educational methodologies: cooperative learning, group tutoring,
oral presentations, laboratory sessions, participative lectures and portfolio. It can be observed that in
Table 1 we included written evaluation. Although it is not one of the teaching-learning methodologies,
we will use it along the term. Besides its value in the continuous evaluation process, we consider it
can help students to accomplish some of the activities required, like study and reflection. In addition to
the activities programmed related to these methodologies, the student should dedicate some time to
personal study and work without the teacher’s presence.
In the lower part of Table 1, we indicate the relationships between each methodology and the activities
that it improves. Note that some methodologies can improve several types of activity. However, we
have marked one or two considered the most important. In the right column of the table, we indicate
the maximum number of sessions dedicated to each methodology along the term. To determine this
number, we have considered the time consumed both by the teacher and the student. The portfolio
does not have a maximum number of sessions assigned because it consists of a written report of
results and reflections of students.
2.6 Assigning the most appropriate methodology to each learning activity
In this stage we select for every practical task programmed during the term, the methodologies that
best covers the learning activities that we are going to require from students. Besides, we will specify
the number of sessions that we estimate necessary.
We go through practical tasks of Table 1 by priority order. For every activity marked with a “*” we look
in the lower part of the table the methodologies that cover it, marked with a “+”. For example, in task
P3 we have marked the need for debate. This activity can be covered by cooperative learning, oral
presentation or lecture.
Next, we program the number of sessions for each methodology that we consider necessary to
adequately cover an activity. In the previous example, we consider that one session of cooperative
learning will be enough. We will refer to this session as Co1, as we see in Table 2.
Study Reflection Testing Information
Management
Debate Tutoring
P1 Or1 Po1 Or1
P3 Le1, Ev1 Co1 Tu1
P5 Le2, Le3,
Le4
Ev2 La1, La2 Tu2
P2 La3
P4 La4
P6 Po2 Po2 Or2
Max. No.
Sessions
Cooperative
Learning
Co1
2
Group
Tutoring
Tu1, Tu2
3
Oral
Presentation
Or1
Or1,
Or2
2
Laboratory
Session
La1,La2,
La3,La4
4
Lecture
Le1, Le2,
Le3, Le4
8
Written
Evaluation
Ev1
Ev2
2
Portfolio
Po2
Po1
-
Table 2. Assigning methodologies to each activity. Set of work sessions.
We can see a different example in P5. In this task we marked the need for testing, covered by the
methodology lab session. In this case we considered necessary two lab sessions (La1 and La2) to
cover the needs of this practical task.
In Table 2 we show all the sessions programmed for every task. The number of sessions selected for
a methodology (see lower part of Table 2) could not be higher than the maximum number indicated in
the right column. This way we obtain the type of work that we will do along the term: cooperative
learning (Co), group tutoring (Tu), oral presentations (Or), laboratory sessions (La), participative
lectures (Le), written evaluation (Ev) and portfolio (Po). Note that the selection criteria for
methodologies are specific for the proposed practical tasks and are based on the educational
experience of the course teachers.
Figure 2. Work session plan.
[Le6] [Le7] [Le8]
T5.- Scheduling in RTS.
T6.- Describin
g
RTS.
[Le1]
Course Presentation
T1.a.- Introduction.
[Le3]
T2.-Concurrent
Programming in Ada95.
[Le5]
T4.- Real Time Design.
[La3]
P2.- Multitask Program in Ada95
[La4]
P4.- Project Implementation.
[Pe]
P6.- Documentation and presentation.
[Le4]
T3.- Real Time Facilities
Programming.
[Pe]
P1.- RTS Exam
p
les Pro
p
osal.
[Co1]
P3.- Project Design.
[La2]
P5.- Schedulability Analysis.
[Co2]
T7.- Fault Tolerance.
T8.- High Integrity Systems.
[Or1]
RTS Examples Oral Presentations.
[Ev1]
Written Test 1.
[Ev2]
Writen Test 2.
[Or2]
Project Oral Presentation.
[Tu1]
Group Tutoring 1.
[Tu2]
Group Tutoring 2.
[Po1]
Portfolio.
[Le2]
T1.b.- Introduction to Ada95.
[Po2]
Portfolio.
[La1]
Scheduling tool usage.
In some cases, the methodology selection does not cover the maximum number of sessions.
Consequently, the available sessions could be dedicated to other subjects or tasks. This is the case of
the number of lectures, where we only cover four from a maximum of eight. Later we will assign the
remaining class hours to the rest of the course topics. Similarly, we have an available session of
cooperative work that will be assigned to the last two theoretical topics (T7 and T8).
The reflection and debate of P1 is covered in the same session of oral presentation (Or1). The
portfolio technique, as indicated in Table 2, will be used in P1 and P6. However, due to the nature of
this methodology, we will include a section per practical task, besides other documentation related to
valuations and reflections of the student on his/her learning process.
In Figure 2 we show the chart of work sessions to be done along the term. Arrows indicate the
relationship between each practical task (P1 to P6) and the rest of the work. Those practical tasks not
having any methodology requiring the presence of the teacher will be done as personal work of the
student (Pe).
2.7 Evaluating the time consumed by student and teacher
In this stage, we compute the work hours that students, with presence of the teacher, need in order to
do the set of work sessions programmed in the previous stage. These work sessions are represented
en Figure 2 for the particular case of our course. In the case of the teacher, it should be taken into
account the number of groups required for each activity. The results for the case of the RTS course
are shown in Table 3.
We would like to emphasize that this number of hours corresponds to those requiring the presence of
students and teacher. For students we need to add the hours of personal work dedicated to prepare
the practical tasks and theory study hours. For our course we estimate about 32 hours of study (16
hours of lecture x 2 hours of study per class) and 44 hours of personal work dedicated to the
development of practical tasks (6 for P1, 6 for P6 and 8 for each task from P2 to P5). They add to a
total of 112 hours of work along the term. In the case of the teacher we need to add the hours
dedicated to prepare the material (handouts, slides, documentation, etc.), to evaluate tests and to
conduct the remaining course management tasks.
Lecture
Lab
Session
Cooperative
Learning
Oral
Presentation
Group
Tutoring
Written
Eval.
Hours/
milestone
P1 2 1 3
P2 6 2 8
P3 2 2 0.5 1 5.5
P4 2 2
P5 6 4 0.5 1 11.5
P6 4 4
T7&T8 2 2
Ha 16 8 4 5 1 2
THs=36
Hp 32 24 8 10 7 4
THt=85
Hs = Student hours dedicated to each methodology
Ht = Teacher hours dedicated to each methodology, considering the number of groups
THs = Total work hours of the student
THt = Total work hours of the teacher
Besides the bounds THs and THt we can establish other partial bounds in terms of the maximum
number of hours that we can dedicate to a particular methodology. To compute THt we have taken
into account the following parameters:
• 2 groups of class (morning and evening).
• 3 laboratory groups.
• 2 cooperative learning groups.
Table 3. Time consumed b
y
student and teacher
• 2 sessions of oral presentations, one for the morning class and another for the evening class. We
have considered the time required for the presentations of all the laboratory groups.
• 7 laboratory groups for group tutoring.
• 2 separated groups for written evaluation (morning and evening).
3. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
In this work we have presented a process to design the educational plan of a project-based course
and its application to a RTS course.
We have developed a proposal to assign educational methodologies to particular learning activities
(Table 1). Through the application of these associations we have got the set of educational
methodologies more appropriate for each practical task composing the project (Table 2). Finally, from
the previous results we have generated the plan for the course (Figure 2) with the restrictions imposed
by the time limitations (Table 3).
We propose as future work the validation of the proposed methodology with our experience in the next
term. Besides, we will need to analyze with more depth the different learning activities that appear
more important in each educational methodology.
4. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work has been partially funded in the academic year 2006-2007 by the Technical University of
Madrid under the project IE06 6110 066, from the research grants for educational innovation in the
framework of the process of implantation of the European Higher Education Space and teaching
quality improvement.
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