Implementation of cooperative learning as a didactic strategy aiming at knowledge building in the logistics area, for Industrial Engineering students

Abstract

This article presents a didactic strategy which was developed with Industrial Engineering students who encounter basic concepts on logistics for the first time. The Logistics I course offers the appropriate theoretical framework needed to apply the concepts through a fieldwork project. With the purpose of innovating and improving the learning processes within the course, the implementation of a didactic strategy based on the Cooperative Learning Approach is proposed to design a learning experience which would allow the students to foster and implement knowledge to complex situations and contexts. Considering the theoretical elements related to the logistics field, the students would have to develop a detailed business model proposal for a potential investor that intended to open a chain of restaurants in Costa Rica. The objective of Cooperative Learning Approach as a proposal is to generate their knowledge construction process by applying the logistic theory in real life situations, using the student´s cooperative development to construct the business model proposal, therefore, reaching a better management of its diverse logistics variables. By means of this innovation, applied to the Industrial Engineering field, it was possible to demonstrate that the Cooperative Learning strategies reinforced university students’ capacity to assimilate theoretical subjects and then to apply them into plausible complex contexts.