Abstract:

In the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) framework, the adaptation to the new degrees means the possibility to improve students' integral education, guiding some teaching actions to the development of skills that allow students to enjoy better labor opportunities.

The acquisition of competencies cannot get if teachers use traditional methodologies exclusively. This implies the incorporation of new active teaching methodologies that allow knowledge generation versus it simple transmission, that is, that students learn doing.

On the other hand, there are numerous studies that highlight the scarce transference among the contents of different subjects when they are treated in an individual manner. In consequence, it is important to take into account the potential included in the development of teaching experiences in which the contents are linked and presented in a real context, gaining in comprehension and functionality.

Taking these aspects into account, we considered that, in higher education, interdisciplinary work is an important tool to get that students make connections and set up and find answers to problematic situations adapting their learning process to a better organized integral knowledge. We have developed in this academic year a project with the aim of boosting interdisciplinarity between different subjects imparted in the first course at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration in Badajoz (University of Extremadura, Spain). After developed some activities with two or three subjects, we have made a final activity linked the contents of the 5 subjects implied in the project: Mathematics, Statistics, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Sociology.

In this sense, we carefully prepared new activities using in our classes new teaching methodologies: the Cooperative Learning (CL) methodology. In the CL the knowledge is built between teachers and students' teams in a framework that promote general motivation, shared responsibility and interpersonal skills. The interdisciplinary experience was set up through the development of an activity that included the knowledge and principal common contents of the subjects. Also, as novelty, we made the activity assessment through a rubric that previously was explained to the students.
The principal aim of our study is to explain the interdisciplinary experience and its influence in the students effort, their competencies development, their perception about it and the use of new methodologies, and, as well, teachers' assessment of this experience.

*This experience is part of the EHEA Consolidation Program of the University of Extremadura and it has the financial support of UEX.

Keywords:

Interdisciplinariety, Cooperative Learning, Rubrics, EHEA.