Development of Autonomous Learning Tools to Enhance Students Learning in Science and Engineering

In recent years computer science courses have become more and more common in science and engineering degrees. However, lecturers face a complex task when teaching this subject: students consider the subject to be unrelated to their core interests and often feel uncomfortable when facing computational concepts for the first time. A non-traditional approach might help students to overcome their difficulties. Several studies have proposed the use of autonomous learning methodologies to improve student involvement. Students in control of their learning processes tend to attain higher learning levels, higher confidence and greater satisfaction. This paper presents an autonomous learning research project conducted at the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Granada. The aim of this project was to develop new computer-based tools that will support the autonomous learning of computer science topics by Chemistry Engineering and Biology students: a set of interactive animations, which will enhance the student’s learning process; a series of screencasts that explain the subject main topics, and a computer system capable of generating different exercises for each student in an automatic way. A database of questions related to computer science has been developed together with several tools to create automatic quizzes. All the materials developed have been placed on an online server that the students can access wherever and whenever they want. In order to evaluate these learning-supported tools, we have compared their results with those obtained when these modules were not available. We have found that there is a significant group of students that have improved their learning thanks to the additional material. Students have also expressed their satisfaction when using the autonomous learning tools.