The new Active Learning Methodologies, places the student in the middle of learning and make him protagonist of it, logically needing new ICTs for its implementation. This introduction of ICT in teaching causes significant changes in the teaching-learning processes.
In this branch of GRETEL we focus on studying the impact that the use of innovative teaching methodologies can have on students through the application of appropriate technological tools (ICTs). The aim of those methodologies is that the student develops better the knowledge and competences that must reach throughout his studies, such as the Project Based Learning (PBL), the Learning Based on Challenges (LBC), the Scenario Centered Curriculum (SCC), Gamification (gaming and / or serious games), and all types of Learning / Collaborative work (CL). On the other hand, we can’t forget the strategies that helps developing the student’s growth and personal maturation skills that allow him to reflect and make decisions with greater criteria and responsibility, such as the application of Coaching in the field of Academic Tutoring.
Both the methodologies and the strategies are modelled according to the location of the education (online, face-to-face or "blended" models), its scope of development and the student's profile. These approaches will lead us to analyse and study (in clear relation with the fourth line of the group) the adaptation of curricular contents through the use of ICTs, to assess the impact they have on academic performance and / or the development of maturity and personal growth in students, and finally to explore new learning environments such as ubiquitous learning, hyper-personalization, micro-learning, or informal models.
Clear sub-lines of action of this section are:
- Personal Learning Environments (PLE): The PLEs focuses on the use of applications, services and tools that can help people to structure and shape the path they follow in their individual learning processes. These not only change progressively and are constantly reformulated by the learning objectives of the individual, but also by the social activity itself as part of their lifelong learning experiences. The PLEs incorporate social elements through the participation of the individual in distributed environments in a way that they learn to create and manage their Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) as a result of their participation in an ecosystem that favours their continuous learning.
- Participating in the PLN builds a personal digital fingerprint that forms the basis of their digital identity as a permanent representation of their learning and their practice through social activities. While the literature in PLE is abundant, the same does not happen with PLN. Autonomous and community participation of students in activities related to their learning is a field to document and with very defined lines of work in experiences such as everything linked to online courses and MOOCs.
- Informal education: Although the formal and non-formal education environments are clearly defined and parametrized their contributions to student progress, the same is not happening with informal content. These processes, much more abstract, are clearly identified and are currently a study trend with the objective of evaluating and considering how to improve the education of our students. In this field, the use of ICTs and the management of collaborative data obtained from multiple sources (Big Data, and Data Mining) can help us to better understand how educational processes work, both in-person and distance participation.