Audiovisual Resources in Laboratory Practices for Hydraulic Engineering

Abstract

During the laboratory practices of a subject, students write all the data, methodology, development and final results for later study at home. When a certain period of time passes since the essay was carried out, there are details that many of the students forget. They do not relate the methodology and development with the laboratory equipment used. The use of audiovisual resources can help students to better study the practical part of the subject. The new teaching resources will be applied in a block of the Hydraulics subject, which is included in the second year of the degree in Civil Engineering, at the Algeciras School of Engineering and Technology. The subject has a theoretical-practical part and another of laboratory practices. The course is divided into three blocks: Hydrostatics, Hydrokinematics and Hydrodynamics. The article will focus on the improvement of the teaching resources of the part of the laboratory practices, of the hydrostatics block. Audio-visual resources will consist of explanatory videos with the development of laboratory practices. The videos show for each of the tests the initial data, the methodology to be applied and the development of the practice. These videos help students to reinforce the knowledge acquired in the laboratory. In addition, the use of these resources helps Erasmus students (for language reasons) to understand the practices. Additionally, the generated material can be used as a resource in the case of non-face-toface practices (as in previous courses due to the Covid-19 pandemic). For the implementation of this initiative, a teaching innovation project has been developed. Eventually, the students show a great interest in the virtualization of the laboratory practices and a high degree of satisfaction with the available videos. Moreover, their academic results improved slightly with this new methodology.