Abstract:

Active learning methodologies stand out among the priority lines in the field of higher education, exemplified by flipped teaching or project-based learning (PBL). The latter is a methodological approach of marked complexity and close to reality, which favours learning experiences with high educational impact, knowledge integration, and the transfer of what has been learnt to professional reality. In this context, it becomes necessary to work and assess the students’ performance related to specific (SC) as well as transversal (TC) competences, previously and simultaneously. For many years, student outcomes have focused on the development of SCs without paying attention on the importance of the development of TCs, which are increasingly demanded by employers and the society. Therefore, engineers not only have to develop competences that are specific to their area of knowledge but must also know how to transmit their own ideas, to work in a team and to understand the impact of the major societal problems on their professional activity and viceversa.

The Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), concerned with this issue, has picked out 13 TCs summarizing those listed by the Tuning project, whose training is integrated in their Bachelor's and Master's degrees. Based on the experience acquired in the School of Industrial Engineering (ETSII) since a number of subjects were appointed as control points of TCs in its 5 Degrees and 7 Masters, 6 of the TCs can be singled out for being the most difficult for teachers: Innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship; Teamwork and leadership; Ethical, environmental and professional responsibility; Knowledge of contemporary problems; Permanent learning; Time planning and management.

Unlike the instrumental CTs, which are intrinsic to the subjects taught, the (inter)personal and systemic ones are complicated to fit in the subjects, because they require more complex or wider environments (Bachelor’s and Master’s Thesis, internships in companies or extracurricular activities), or demand a training time that is scarce. That is why it has been proposed to use the flipped teaching methodology for the students’ autonomous learning in TCs, through the development of an online educational platform. The website, with a section per TC, is accessible from https://www.etsii.upv.es/competencias/index-es.php. Its structure covers the definition of the TC, the aspects to enhance to acquire it, a performance level test, and resources to improve it (in-house produced and external). It is designed to be consulted by the students, guided by the teacher towards a specific resource, to next put it into practice jointly with SCs, by means of activities inside or outside the class.

The need to have a platform of this nature was not detected, neither exclusively nor for the first time in the UPV. Indeed, some Universities’ websites contain material for some time now for this purpose. Notwithstanding, the value of this initiative is double: on the one hand, it is a space designed for the training of students and not for assisting the teacher (the UPV already put material available to teachers), and, on the other hand, it will serve as a vertical coordination axis between the subjects of a degree. Future actions of improvement include examples of application of the techniques proposed to engineering cases, organization of resources by domain levels, and experiences of UPV students.

Keywords:

Transversal competences, industrial engineering, e-learning, educational platform, flipped teaching.