ACTION RESEARCH: WHEN THE TEACHER LISTENS TO THE STUDENT. AN EXPERIENCE IN CAD TEACHING

The project we propose is based on the educational research methodology of action research, since as teachers we can investigate on our own teaching practices. We have applied this methodology to the subject of Computer-Aided Design into the Industrial Design Engineering and Product Development Degree. Although this is a well known methodology in the field of Social Sciences, it is not yet very used in other areas such as Engineering. The primary focus of our study was the evidence of a demand for specific educational materials argued by some students. Finally the experience consisted of the elaboration of self-learning material jointly with improvements in the schedule and evaluation criteria, increasing the weight of a graphic project of a real product. This research is included in a more general project developed by the Educational Support Unit (USE) of the Jaume I University. This USE project includes different strategies: providing novel teacher's training with courses and seminars to improve teaching, the supervision of the novel teacher by an experienced teacher of the same area who is involved in improving education, and the possibility of developing a teaching innovative project with financial support included, possibility that we gratefully accepted to develop the experience presented here. After a semester of implementation, we run a survey to the students and the answers were very positive about the materials and the new methodology. Therefore we reaffirm our belief of the goodness of listening to students' demands to improve teaching. Furthermore, students have made other suggestions which we intend to implement during the next year.