Technical projects with social commitment for teaching-learning intervention in STEM students

We present a teaching methodology based on active learning that faces new social challenges to obtain better levels of students’ motivation and promote their social responsibility. It consists of a project-based learning core that organizes students in teams to design and manufacture autonomy-oriented products capable of assisting people in a dependency situation. We mainly combine open-source software and low-cost machines to make the products. The first experience was implemented in a subject shared by all the 2ndyear engineering degrees during the 2018-19 academic year. We programmed a series of short oral presentations to (i) improve students’ time management skills, and (ii) receive periodical feedback across the whole semester. Herein, we report the results from the self-assessment and peer evaluation surveys of the first year of this experience. Peer evaluation was incorporated into the subject’s final score. Results showed that our methodology could positively influence students’ self-perception of their acquired soft-skills and technical knowledge. The high quality of the deliverables, together with the outstanding final ratings and success rates achieved, seem to be related to the extraordinary levels of students’ motivation after this experience.