Factores que influyen en el aprendizaje mixto (blended-learning) y colaborativo en Moodle en Didáctica de las Ciencias Experimentales en el Grado de Maestro en Educación Primaria

Abstract

The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) encourages the implementation of platforms such as Moodle (Learning Management Systems) to foster construction of Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), promoting collaborative learning and blended learning (Vuopala et al. al., 2016). However, in the Higher Education context, the reduced use of Moodle as a mere repository, mainly for downloading or reading documents, it is still very frequent (Perkins y Pfaffman, 2006; Marozas y Dumbrava, 2010; Costa et al., 2012; Rivadulla-López, 2015). In order to promote blended-learning and collaborative learning among the students in the subject “Didactics of Experimental Sciences”, in the third year of Primary Education Degree, the virtual space called “The Science Corner” was created in Moodle, promoting its use as VLE. The aim was to facilitate the students to share their analysis about different teaching resources available online. The students must select and analyse them, together with a didactic proposal for its implementation adapted to a specific level in Primary Education, according to the official contents in Natural Sciences. At first, for the creation of this VLE, the tool “Forum” in Moodle was used, while in the following academic year the tool “Wiki” was used instead. In this work this experience, carried out in the VLE in two academic courses, is evaluated, analysing the possible influence of several factors such as the type of digital Moodle tool used (“Forum” or “Wiki”) or the influence of little gratification over student participation. Also, the students´ perception of this virtual learning activity (through surveys) is included.