IMPLEMENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF NEW LEARNING ACTIVITIES IN THE CONTEXT OF DIFFERENT DEGREES: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BOTH FACTORS

The assessment of the competencies in the new European higher education system supposes a big challenge to the European Universities in general and to the University of Cadiz in particular, owing, on the one hand, by the lack of resources to carry out this difficult task and, on the other hand, by the high number of students in the lecture room. The members of the group presenting this paper participate in an Innovative Project entitled “Implementation and analysis of new learning activities in the context of different grades: relationship between both factors”.

The team is constituted by fourteen professors who teach in different Grades at the University of Cadiz. This group has developed and carried out different learning activities in different Grades such as Marine Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Chemistry, Enology, Biotechnology, etc. Students of these grades were characterized by different ages, maturity grades, with and without work, etc. Besides, the characteristics of the subjects in which the activities were applied were taken into account.
In order to compare the suitability of the proposed activity for each group of students, the same activity was implemented in different subjects from different grades. Some of the activities studied were: resolution of on-line tests constructed by professor; construction of tests by students and, later, used as exams by professor; oral presentations of research articles and/or practical sessions; use of outlines by students during theoretical sessions; study of practical situations; etc.

The objective of this work was the evaluation of the proposed activities to select those ones, which revealed to be more appropriate for each type of student according to their own characteristics (age, maturity grade, only study or study and work simultaneously, etc.) and the type of subject in the framework of their degree. In the meanwhile, the group of professors involved in this project has developed activities for continuous evaluation of students as well as to enhance them to be more active in the classroom during the lecture and out the classroom by themselves.

In all cases, students have demonstrated a high level of participation in all proposed learning activities. However, some activities have showed to be more appropriated for advanced students, who showed higher self-confidence and higher maturity grade; and only a weak influence of the type of subject or degree has been appreciated.