A Learning Resource Management Model for high-enrollment Programming courses in Engineering

In courses where enrollment is high, especially in courses in the first years of university study, the set of elements necessary for the curriculum implies that the same professor develops the study materials, adapts them, and integrates them into the virtual learning environment provided by the institution. Higher education institutions offer courses for a common subject each semester, which generates an administrative juncture. This paper aims to present a learning resource management model for high enrollment programming courses in engineering. It highlights the collaborative work initiated in the pandemic by a team of teachers who share academic and research interests to enhance student learning. An empirical-analytical work methodology with a quasi-experimental and longitudinal approach was developed. Four phases of work are developed in semestral periods at the Universidad Politécnica Salesiana, Guayaquil, Ecuador. From October 2019 to September 2023, in semesters numbered 55 to 63. About 240 students participate in this offer each semester. The survey technique is used in period 62, to a group of 151 students in a randomized manner to identify the set of significant activities for their learning. The results, with 95% confidence and a margin of error of 4.9%, determine that the learning activities housed in the high enrollment Programming courses have allowed students to achieve a 78% satisfaction rate for the use of activities that allow them to improve their knowledge in the topics addressed. It is concluded that having a base course for its duplication and integration of new learning elements, allow teachers to decrease the burden of configuration, integration and selection of activities, directing their efforts to create new, improve and optimize the existing ones, awakening the teacher’s creativity and directing their efforts to the retention of students, as well as a belonging to worry about students at risk or with academic difficulties.