Concrete dosage: from trial-and-error to the use of personal computers, which method is better for university students?

Abstract

[EN] Computer tools have been evolving at an incredible speed in education, especially at the university level. Twenty-five years ago, in university education, there were just beginning to be computer practices based mainly on tools such as Excel in experimental university careers. Today, thanks to the advance in technology, the radiography of universities are very different. Most students come to school daily with their laptops and tablets to college. They are part of the generations called "digital natives.¿ As higher education teachers, we cannot be oblivious to this reality, and we must rethink how to adapt teachings to the daily use of computer technologies. It also means being closer to the procedure these students will follow later when they are professionals in their field. This paper deals with the work done by the Construction Materials unit of the Civil Engineering School to adapt the dosage of concrete to the use of Excel, which was carried out with manual calculations using a calculator until this academic year. Expressly, the use of the Excel spreadsheet was limited to obtaining aggregate granulometric curves from the mixture of several of them so that they were as similar as possible to a series of theoretical curves through the use of equitable adjustments based on the use of a spreadsheet. The teacher's challenge in the classroom is twofold. On the one hand, he has the task of making the students understand the factors and limitations to be considered when carrying out concrete batching. On the other hand, it is to explain the use of a specific tool of the Microsoft "Excel" software to know how a least squares adjustment can be carried out. The present work explains in detail the challenges faced by the teachers, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of moving from a manual procedure (slower, more laborious, and with more room for thought) to a computerized process (more automatic and faster). The latter is how future civil engineers will carry out their work. The advantages of using this type of tool and the main problems detected in the students related to understanding the procedure they are carrying out will be indicated.