TEACHING ENGINEERING COURSES IN THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION ERA

In this paper we present a teaching model for Engineering couses, particularly courses of Applied Mechanics for the new generation of Engineering Programs. After the online terms due to the global pandemic, students and their professors returned to campuses and some lessons learned during that period were positive ones and students keep on demanding new models of teaching making use of the latest technologies. The use of digital media has become widely accepted by both, faculty members and students and most lectures are now recorded and students are used to have such material available on the same day of the class session. We present the students perceptions of what the new generation of Engineering courses should have in order to be attractive to students, help them develop some digital transformation competencies and, mainly, help them perform their best in courses that could be difficult, such as the Applied Mechanics courses. A total of 350 students were surveyed in the last four years, even prior to the pandemic to get their perceptions and their ideas on what an ideal Engineering course should contain, taking into account the era in which we are living, with particular focus on Digital Transformation Competencies and the use of new Artificial Intelligence tools such as ChatGPT (R). We present a model that has been successfully implemented in our university and we think that Engineering educators worldwide can benefit from our experience and the recommendations our students provided.