Creation of a virtual museum as a learning tool in the teaching of the Manufacturing Engineering subject

Abstract

Teaching subjects such as Manufacturing Engineering requires the use of effective teaching tools, which help students in their learning process. While the traditional transmission model can be effective when teaching concepts and theoretical contents, others activities are essential to allow students to participate, act or reflect, thus developing skills and competences, such us communication, teamwork, and creativity. This paper presents a learning tool based on the creation of a virtual museum related to the Manufacturing Engineering field, which is included as a coursework in the teaching program of the subject "Manufacturing Engineering". This subject is taught at the second year of different degrees at the Industrial Engineering School of the University of Malaga and a percentage of its final grade comes from this activity. The museum is materialized through the posters whose format is similar to those presented at conferences and whose content may be referred to three topics (object, process or biography). Once the students are given the necessary instructions, each project is selected by a work group and its development is supervised in the next two sessions by the lecturer. In the final stage, each group give the presentation about their work. The analysis of the students’ grades obtained from both this activity and the whole subject makes it possible to quantify the impact of this type of activities on the student learning and achievement. Eventually, best posters will be part of the department collection, being accessible to students in subsequent years.