Twenty-eighth International Conference on Learning

Abstract

Engineering career training by itself involves constant and evolving challenges. The elective course Fundamentals of Animal Cell Culture of the Biotechnology Engineering Career at Costa Rican Institute of Technology, was designed as a theoretical-practical subject in which master class predominates and three laboratory practices were implemented throughout a semester. Considering that many procedural and attitudinal skills are thought to develop during the course, we’ve tried a new approach to improve the learning experience. Therefore, in 2019, inverted classroom and playful learning were used to develop and evaluate conceptual content, while procedural and attitudinal contents were managed with elements of gamification and challenge-based learning. As a result, we obtained a course where extra-class time is used individually for basic content learning, and most of the time in class is used to evaluate and apply this knowledge through play and a practical group project proposed by the students themselves responding to a real problem, according to their interests and affinities.