TECHNICAL TRAINING COURSES: A TEACHING METHODOLOGY WITH A PRACTICAL POINT OF VIEW

Taking into account the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA), the internationalization and cooperation among different universities is an essential aspect to be developed. The new Agrifood Campus of International Excellence (CeiA3) of Andalusia provides the possibility to researchers and professional workers of the Agrifood sector of improving their training by means of different courses of specialization called “Technical Training Courses”.

A group of professors from the University of Cádiz, with the cooperation of a foreign professor from the University of Bologna (Italy) developed one of these courses in the academic year 2011/2012, whose title was “Analysis of oenological products by means of advanced chromatographic techniques”, and it was focused on graduates and professional of the agricultural sector from any part of Andalusia. The length of the course was 35 hours, a part of it was taught in English.
The main teaching objectives of this course were on the one hand, to develop lessons from a very practical point of view, avoiding the typical master class and to establish a close report with students. And on the other hand, to improve the training of researchers and professional workers, offering them the possibility of receiving a course in a different place from them, with the most exhaustive and comprehensive scientific material.

The mobility of the students was finally achieved because a high percentage of them were external from the University of Cádiz. Moreover, as can be derived from a final questionnaire submitted to students, the obtained opinions of the course were excellent and all the students were very satisfied with both the scientific material provided and the practical teaching methodology. However, only with a low number of students (10), this methodology could be successfully carried out.
Finally, during the development of the mentioned course, the different professors involved improved as well several adeptness or competences, that are included in the Grade titles and therefore are evaluated during the academic teaching activity. Examples of these competences can be the following: oral expression, work group, resolution of practical scientific problems or communication in a second language.