Abstract:

It is a fact that teachers and university teaching methods should be reformed as a result of adaptation of university education to the European higher education space. This reform has to be directed primarily toward increasing student leadership in the process of teaching and learning, acquiring the teacher essentially guiding role throughout this process.

With this regard, we present in this communication an innovative experience, classified as active methodology, conducted by novice university teachers. In particular, we have used the “case study” methodology. This technique basically consists on the analysis by the students of real cases provided by the teacher, in order to achieve the experiential conceptualization and ultimately serve as a reinforcement of the teaching – learning process. Among the advantages of this approach it is worthy to mention the strengthening of motivation and the analysis and synthesis skills. The teacher's role in this methodology is to guide reflection and discussion, and promote the synthesis in which the theoretical concepts relate to the practical analyzed in the case.

The experience we present here has been performed in the area of knowledge of analytical chemistry, and students with whom the experience has been implemented have been fifth-year undergraduate Chemistry students (30 students in total). The entire student group was divided into 2-3 people groups and the teacher gave each group a research article published in scientific journals. Scientific papers were strategically selected by the teacher in order to cover the topics discussed during the course of the subject.

At the end of the experience, feedback from students was collected through a survey. In this sense, it is important to highlight that the vast majority of them valued this experience as a very positive activity.

Keywords:

Case Study, Motivation, Teaching-learning Process.