The use of immersive virtual worlds in the improvement of competencies of team work, creativity and innovation

Abstract

The Teaching Innovation Plan 2015-2016 of the University of Cordoba had among its priorities competency-based work (line 1), the promotion of virtual teaching (line 10) and tutoring students (line 12). In this context, the use of immersive virtual worlds has been applied to improve teamwork competencies and the management of virtual tools, both being important and transferable aspects to the learning of any discipline. Thus, an immersive virtual scenario was created to enable work meetings, and group activities were designed for learning the handling of avatars in working groups. In addition, tutored activities aimed at solving group doubts as well as definitely improving creativity in an innovative and different atmosphere. These sessions were included within the practices of the subject "Projects" of the degree of Agri-food Engineering and Rural Environment. The results of the evaluation of the experience -as an ad hoc survey designed to characterize the learning curve of the management of avatars and immersive worlds-, showed the success and usefulness of the project whose material is reusable in future educational experiences.