Felipe Tirado

Examining the relationship between epistemic activity and academic achievement using of scripts and co-evaluation strategies in a VLE

It was conducted study with 36 university students. The purpose of this study was to promote the epistemic activity of students (critical and creative thinking) through collaboration (dialogic argumentation). The study analyzes the relationship between the intensity of student work using the tools provided in the virtual learning environment and the quality of academic products made by the teams. The students worked in 12 integrated teams in a Moodle platform. The teams conducted a case study (problem-based learning PBL) based on a topic of the curriculum chosen by them. The dynamics was modeled by means of collaboration scripts. The co-evaluation (peer review) was conducted through questionnaires and rubrics to evaluate the report of the case study and the collaborative process. As conclusion, we can say the teams that worked in collaboration had higher epistemic activity and therefore did better.

La motivación como estrategia educativa Un estudio en la enseñanza de la botánica

This article reports the results of an experimental study that has been carried out to promote motivation amongst university students who took part into a Botany course. The study consisted in the assessment of an educational strategy specially designed to improve discipline teaching starting from an introductory module that had as purpose to develop amongst students some interest and attitudes conducive to the learning of the course contents. In order to assess the strategy the authors evaluated the students’ knowledge, opinions and attitudes before and after the course. The results show that there were significant changes in accordance with what was expected by the working hypothesis.

Inducing student interaction in a virtual environment

In this paper we are reporting on an experimental research study. The study employed a mixed teaching procedure (traditional classroom -face to face- and virtual classroom). The purpose of the study was to induce student interactions in a virtual environment. The aim was to develop a series of specific skills by means of collaborative online work including collective essays and digital presentations.