This paper aims to show the process and experience in training professionals in the computer engineering curriculum designed to develop the following skills of knowledge: being, doing and knowing of the person in the context of Universidad Católica de Temuco (UCT) in Chile. The paper shows how to demonstrate cognitive and metacognitive processes towards the achievement of the skills developed by the student.
Advancements have shown progress in curricular development in the transition of the students, since their admission to their graduation. Significant improvements in teaching and learning engineering that occur as a consequence of the educational model created and applied by UCT were observed by measurements of the processes of vertical and horizontal integration. The educational model in which the formation of the students of computer engineering is founded, is based in five key axes: the skills-based training, meaningful learning, continuing education courses, Christian and humanistic formation, and information and communication technologies. These axes are interrelated in the curriculum based on four specific skills: software development, management of information technologies, application of engineering science, and modeling and applications of computer science.
The questions that we try to resolve in this paper are: Is it possible to improve the abilities of students (from Valparaíso region, Chile) that are inserted into a cultural-economic-social system, through teaching and learning based in an educational system that allows them to discover, expand and exploit the improvements of training of professional human with capital skills? The process of validating skills respond to conceive, design, implement and operate (CDIO) being adapted and adopted. The way in which this process occurs, during the transition of skills levels of the students, is reached at different times that take place in different subjects concerning teaching and learning activities.
The implementation of the skills validation process is produced in different contexts that articulate the following stages: conceive, design, implement and operate. The instruments designed to validate the stages are developed in laboratories, interaction with the environment, casework, simulations and comprehensive workshops. The same experience to safeguard the quality of teaching according to the rules of education in Chile, is based on mechanisms of control developed by the entity called Comisión Nacional de Acreditación (CNA); so that professional training can be regulated.
The computer engineering program is inserted in the macro southern part of Chile, in the region of La Araucanía. The educational model based on skills training adopted by UCT aims to meet the own needs of the region, for training upright people, and people committed to their sociocultural environment. This paper shows the achievements in the process and the internal strategies that permitted to achieve accreditation to accomplish continuous improvement of CDIO.
Key words: Skills, CDIO, mechanisms, educational model, teaching learning.
Proceedings of the 12th International CDIO Conference, Turku, Finland, June 12-16 2016