TRADITIONAL LECTURE IN HIGHER EDUCATION: HOW TO ENHANCE ENGAGEMENT THROUGH FLIPPED LEARNING AND ICT

Traditional lecture has been the basement of teaching at higher education for centuries. However, in K-12 and high schools this way of teaching is being transformed into a more active class, with gamification playing a key role. This is happening in many schools around the world. Nowadays students were already born and/or they have grown under the 'digital age'. They want to catch their own future and, of course, they want to follow their personal ways of learning. It is true that universities and higher education centers must adequate their teaching to the new reality and engage the students in the learning process in a more effective way. The modern teacher must to improve the traditional lecture introducing new approaches. One important tool to do this is the Flipped Learning or Flipped Classroom 'philosophy'. Homework makes the students get the important concepts and list the doubts than will be next worked at the classroom. The classwork allows the teacher or lecturer to help the students to gain deep in concepts and contents making a more active and significant learning. The Flipped Learning strategy and other different learning methodologies can be improved by taking advantage of digital tools. They can make easier and enhance the Flipped implementation. The simple use of the students' own smartphones and tablets in class, for example to make a survey, can improve their engagement and their interest to learn. These tools and other methodologies have been used in this work with good results, but every teacher must develop his/her own global strategy to improve the traditional lecture and transform it in a more attractive and, which is more important, efficient way of teaching for the students.