Abstract:

The incorporation of Spanish universities to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) has introduced many changes in learning methodology. The university’s mission in this new context is to train professionals with a strong capacity for learning that enables them to successfully perform in a society that is constantly progressing, where knowledge becomes outdated quickly. In this sense, the new teaching method promoted by the creation of the EHEA proposes the creation of a teaching-learning system that enhances the development of various skills. The professor loses his roll as transmitter of information and becomes a guide in the student learning process. That is we are moving from a teacher-centered teaching to a student-centered one. The development of generic and cross-disciplinary skills, apart from the specific ones, is always present in the teaching program of each subject.
One of the most interesting cross-disciplinary skills which conditions the teaching methodology is cooperative work. Besides, the promotion of this skill involves the development of others, such as organization and planning, multiculturalism, oral and written communication, foreign language learning, critical thinking, students' adaptation to a new situation, creativity and leadership; which are all very important skills in the overall education of students [1].
It is very important for a professor to know the basis of cooperative work in order to design interesting and enriching activities that work, since the essence of this teaching methodology is to learn from others and discover our skills while working in a teamwork. The basic scheme of cooperative work can be summarized in a decalogue of important ideas to consider:
1. Group formation.
2. Choice of topic.
3. Performance standards.
4. Setting team objectives and activities.
5. Interaction.
6. Resources.
7. Group performance.
8. Decision-making strategies.
9. Ongoing assessment.
10. Self-evaluation.

Through the development of cooperative projects, the use and integration of technical and educational resources is encouraged in order to enable students to further enrich their learning experience, as well as be trained on different means to communicate, express themselves and present the results of their activities or products. The cooperative work has become a practice, which grows daily. Therefore, synchronous and asynchronous collaborative tools have been developed, especially in the academic environment.
In this work, the previous of the development of a cooperative work experience are analyzed in a communication subject from a College in the United States: Introduction to Advertising. The work was carried out according to the technical puzzle of Aronson [2-3]. Following this technique, the contents of the subject were divided among various working teams, which worked interrelating between them. The group formation, the arising problems, the way to solve them, mistakes made and conclusions are discussed, highlighting the advantages and limitations of this methodology.

References:
[1] BLANCO A. (2009), "Desarrollo y evaluación de competencias en Educación Superior". Narcea S.A. ediciones, España.
[2] ARONSON, E. y PATNOE, S. (1997), "The Jigsaw Classroom. Building Cooperation in the Classroom", United States: Longman (Second Edition).
[3] ARONSON, E., BLANEY, N., SIKES, J., STEPHAN, C. y SNAPP, M. (1978),T"he jigsaw classroom", Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications.

Keywords:

Cooperative work, puzzle methodology, skills development