Abstract:

The Bologna Process was a European initiative to bring about transparency and compatibility of higher education across Europe. It involved the establishment of a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) by 2010. Although much has been said about the virtues and drawbacks of this profound reform of the entire academic ecosystem, there’s still a feature which has deserved little attention: the involvement of students in their entire process of teaching and learning at college stage. The objective of this study is to investigate the differential effectiveness of teaching methods on students' academic performance.

Research shows that quality teaching tends necessarily to be student-centred. It aims to help most -if not all- students learning. Therefore, focus should not only be on pedagogical skills, but rather on the available tools in the teaching-learning process, as well as the way teenagers think and conduct themselves nowadays. There is a great need of new teaching methods and pedagogies to meet these circumstances. Hence, we can say that there is also a need of change in the learner and teachers’ means of interaction.

This paper addresses the role of professors in this process, a process requires a whole shift in the way teaching has traditionally been understood. Based upon our current experience in Centro Universitario Villanueva, we present a comprehensive research-driven perspective on what we think digital technologies and gamification can achieve in Law studies.

Specifically, and given the teacher plays a vital role in this scenario, we show that a new “teaching style” can contribute to academic excellence in three ways:
1) by enhancing students’ attention in class as well as motivating their interest for the topics discussed;
2) by making the experience of learning something that, if it may be not be funny, doesn’t necessarily has to be boring;
3) by explaining why, given the world is changing, and so are our students, teachers need to be technology savvies as well, in order to meet new global emerging demands.

Keywords:

Teaching-learning process, methdologies, digital platforms, gamification.