Abstract:

Educational research has focused mainly on three structures of organization in the classroom: individualistic, competitive and cooperative structures. Our point is that the fact of highlighting the latest ones, which are related to cooperative learning in the class, is interesting as they offer a productive alternative to the competition and individualism.

This paper describes and evaluates an educational innovation, carried out in the third year of the degree of Industrial Engineering at the Technical University of Valencia. Concretely, the study is directed to the subject "Management", a core course with 5-credits, developed in the second semester of the 2011-2012 academic year. The course comprises 5 groups, with a population of 352 students. More specifically the active methods studied have been applied in laboratory practices, that comprised 1,1 credits per student. The study was carried out in three sessions, two of four hours and one of three hours. These practices have a weight of 20% of the overall score for the course.

This innovation is based in the combination of the following active methodologies: Aronson puzzle technique and case studies.
The aims of the study were to develop and assess generic competences, and also specific competences related with the issue, through the use of active methodologies, and student participation in the process of evaluation (self / co-evaluation).
The design and methodology of the learning process is detailed next:
1. Specify learning objectives.
2. Assign students to groups, which consisted of 4 or 5 students.
3. Provide the necessary teaching materials: written documentation, videos, specific websites to consult ...
5. Distribute time of the tasks.
5. Explain the academic tasks
6. Assign roles to ensure positive interdependence.
7. Teach and advise each group, during the task to be performed.
8. Correct the activity carried out through the oral presentation by an individual student by group, using a rubric, and also inputs from the other groups and the lecturer.
9. Self-assess by each group, of their work.
10. Co-evaluate by another group.
11. Complete an individual questionnaire, in order to assess the methodologies used and the importance of the diverse generic and specific competences. The questionnaire has been prepared by the group of teachers of the department.

In the last practice session, in order to make an overall assessment of the enhanced innovation, we applied an adaptation of the next questionnaires: Valuate Cooperative Learning as Methodology of Teaching and Learning Assessment at the University (Gonzalez, N. and R. Garcia , 2005), adapted from the SEEQ (Students'Evaluations of Educational Quality) and prepared by (Marsh, HW and Roche, LA, 1970) from the University of Western Sydney MacArthur, Australia, together with the Social Competence Questionnaire developed by Torbay, Muñoz Bustillo and Jorge Hernandez, 2001, from the University of La Laguna, Spain, with a total of 25 closed response items and 3 open-ended items.

Finally, we have compared the marks obtained in the course practice in 2011-12 with the ones of the previous year. In addition, we studied and highlighted, according to the opinion of the students, the strengths and weaknesses of the tasks carried out, and also the proposals for improvement of the teachers involved.

Keywords:

Puzzle of Aronson, Case study.