García Higuera, María del Carmen
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Preferred name
García Higuera, María del Carmen
Official Name
García Higuera, María del Carmen
Alternative Name
García Higuera, Carmen
mcgarcia
Villa, Carmen G.
G.-Villa, Carmen
García Villa, Carmen
Main Affiliation
ORCID
Scopus Author ID
25655594500
Researcher ID
CRE-3256-2022

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Improving student retention and soft skills: Faculty experiences on transitioning to active learning approaches on first-year engineering programs at Universidad Panamericana

2019 , García Higuera, María del Carmen , Chávez Tellerias, Rocio , Alemán Juárez, Armando , Niembro García, Isabel Joaquína

Motivation and problem background. This complete evidence-based practice paper describes the pedagogical redesign process of an introductory physics course for first-year engineering students at Universidad Panamericana, and the experience of professors that applied problem and project-based learning methodologies. Teaching and learning concepts and approaches in higher education are experiencing dramatic transformations due to contextual changes in recent years. Contemporary teaching models are student-centered, and based on active learning, technology, and social media integration. Engineering education research has grown exponentially and even though there is vast evidence of how different teaching practices can improve learning, professors still face a lot of barriers to include them in their practice. Adequate transfer of conceptual knowledge to problem solving requires appropriate pedagogies that ensure student engagement in the learning process. Quality of instruction and pre-college preparation are key for student success in STEM courses, and therefore, in the decision of students to stay in their programs (Chen & Soldner, 2013,). In Mexico, according to ANFEI (National Association of Colleges and Schools of Engineering), only 40% of engineering students graduate on time. First-year course are easy for some students, but represent a big challenge for others, who frequently do not succeed (Vargas Leyva & Jiménez Hernández, 2015). In addition, research has shown that student's prior mathematics and physics training, as well as their academic attitude, influence their decision to stay in STEM majors (Astin, 1993). Besides, since 2010, Universidad Panamericana has deployed a series of strategies to help students strengthen the professional skills. These strategies include skills ABET proposed for engineering graduates, such as multidisciplinary teamwork, critical thinking, and effective communication. Nevertheless, there is still a significant gap between the skills engineering graduates need to succeed in the workplace and those developed through college experience. To address the previous concerns, the Center for Innovation in Education was invited to collaborate with the College of Engineering at Universidad Panamericana to redesign an introductory physics course. Problem and Project-based Learning (PBL) methodologies were chosen to teach the course and strategies to develop students’ soft skills were included. The course was taught in the fall of 2017. This paper is divided into two parts. In the first part we describe the redesign process that the Center for Innovation in Education followed in collaboration with three engineering faculty members teaching the course. The second part we present the experiences of the eight professors that taught the redesigned course. ©2019 American Society for Engineering Education

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Teaching undergraduate students entrepreneurship skills : a boot camp for high impact technological business projects

2018 , Alemán Juárez, Armando , Capetillo García Williams, Ximena , García Higuera, María del Carmen

Our understanding of teaching and learning in higher education has grown exponentially, and in some cases has outpaced the conceptions of teaching. Bass (2012) describes how the fine boundary between the classroom and life experience, along with the increased power of social learning, and integrative contexts have created new ways of learning and disruptive teaching experiences. Literature has shown that entrepreneurship education benefits students from all socioeconomic backgrounds because it nurtures unique talents and skills, such as critical thinking, communication, and collaboration (Rodov & Truong, 2015). Moreover, Hegarty (2006) states that teaching entrepreneurship in universities can encourage students to look creatively at their future opportunities, and can help develop not only the capacity to start companies, but also to think creatively and ambitiously. Recognizing the value of teaching entrepreneurship, Universidad Panamericana has mandatory courses in the undergraduate curricula. Furthermore, this year, the university offered a full immersion semester-long entrepreneurship boot camp in collaboration with a private company: i-Lab, a program for high impact technological business projects. This paper presents the experiences of the students in the workshop, as well as the benefits and challenges faced by the participants. Fourteen students, four men and ten women participated in the i-Lab boot camp. Two participants were from the School of Pedagogy, and twelve from the College of Engineering. The camp was designed with the intent to develop entrepreneurial talent by guiding students through the process of building up ideas and making them real. Students defined how to solve a worldwide problem meaningfully with the correct business model. The methodology of the study was qualitative in order to understand and describe the experiences of undergraduate students attending the i-Lab camp. Data came from a questionnaire with open-ended questions sent to the students participants. In addition, individual interviews with the students were conducted. Preliminary findings focus on how entrepreneurship influenced the development of undergraduate students. They strengthened some skills such as teamwork, synthesis, analysis, self directed learning, leadership, negotiation, empathy, and critical thinking. Students described their experiences in i-Lab as very challenging but rewarding. In addition to hard work and the sacrifices they had to make in order for their projects to come through, they shared the importance of living the methodology, their personal growth, and how the experience enhanced their decision-making skills. Alongside this results, the findings provides insights to move to a student centered model. Higher Education Institutions need to include experiential learning projects and partner with different centers inside and outside the university to reshape the curricula and provide different learning experiences. ©2018 INTED2018 Proceedings

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The use of gamification to facilitate learning of multimedia subjects in undergraduate education students

2017 , García Higuera, María del Carmen , Becerra Mariscal, Arturo Eduardo , Alemán Juárez, Armando

In this sense, this paper questions the learning relevance of Gamification, especially in a context of education students in Mexico. It describes the experiences of 144 college students, at Escuela de Pedagogía (School of Pedagogy), Universidad Panamericana, campus Ciudad de México who had taken a full-semester multimedia workshop with game design principles. The purpose of the study was to better understand their learning experiences of taking a class with such a methodology. The objective of this course is that students learn to use technology and multimedia tools and apply them to educational contexts, such as videos, podcasts, infographics, websites and webinars. For this reason, a platform called Classcraft was implemented throughout the course, using Gamification elements to generate interest, empathy and class engagement. ©2017, IATED .

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Revista de Integridad Académica : an effort to foster academic integrity in Universidad Panamericana

2018 , Alemán Juárez, Armando , Becerra Mariscal, Arturo Eduardo , García Higuera, María del Carmen

As an effort to promote a culture of AI in Latin America, and specifically in Mexico, Universidad Panamericana developed an online publication called: Revista de Integridad Academica, with four universities in the region: Universidad EAFIT at Colombia, Tecnológico de Monterrey and Universidad de Monterrey at Mexico, and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. The publication seeks to disseminate and promote academic integrity values among universities in Latin America. Its long term-purpose is to emerge as an international reference on the topic. In this paper, we present an initial approach to a theoretical framework of AI in Latin America. Next, we relate this framework to the creation of Revista de Integridad Académica as a strategy to foster AI in Universidad Panamericana. Finally, we explain how the publication has grown to become periodical, as a result of inter-institutional collaboration and its digital impact. ©2019 IATED Academy

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