Active methodology in mechanical technology

Challenged with the existence of increasingly heterogeneous classes in higher education, it is imperative that the teacher reflects on his practice and worries about the learning environment of the curricular units that he/she teaches. This paper describes a teaching experience developed in the Mechanical Technology II course unit, of the degree in Mechanical Engineering, in the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 academic years. The main objective of the experiment was to achieve a greater involvement of students in the theoretical component of the course unit. Thus, the students were assigned the responsibility of presenting the theoretical subjects in the classes instead of being presented by the teacher as was usual in other years. In addition, in each class, a debate was held on the presentations and the students made a brief written evaluation of the subject. Evaluating the experience, through a questionnaire, the students generally agreed that it was positive for their learning. This is corroborated by the results of the evaluation, since, compared to previous years, there was a significant improvement in the students' classifications in the theoretical component of the course unit.