Abstract:

AirQStat is a teaching innovation initiative undertaken by an interdisciplinary network of professors from different Universities and Research Institutions of Spain in 2015. The challenge was to screen and highlight technological resources and communication technologies (ICTs) currently available to be applied in classroom and virtual teaching environments in a systematic and practical way. The subject air quality was selected with the objective to create awareness among undergraduate, incorporating climate-impact and health-impact variables in their future interests, both academic and professional.

During its second year of development, the AirQStat project has been focused on putting in practice some of the exercises designed. Five pilot sessions where undertaken, all of them with undergraduate students, two of them on Economics and three on Business Administration grades. Two of the exercises available in AirQStat repository were used together with active learning methodologies.

The design of the sessions is presented here, as well as the results. Those last showed the importance of the active teaching technique chosen and the feedback from the professors who implemented the exercises, which have been captured through qualitative analysis. Final remarks describe the methodological improvements that the exercises may need to incorporate together with some general recommendations for future users of the AirQStat repository.

Keywords:

Teaching innovation, exercises repository, undergraduate studies, active learning.