FROM MY SUBJECT TO OUR SUBJECTS: A WAY FOR A NECESSARY CHANGE

This article is framed within the Educational Innovation Project entitled "Coordination of contents between the subjects of 3rd year Forest Engineering (UPM) and the other degree subjects”.

In Faculties of Engineering, most of the final-year subjects have, as one of their main objectives, the student's technical training for each specific field in each subject. In order to achieve this goal, most lecturers teach their subjects without considering other courses. There may be some or all of these situations: a) the lecturer supposes some previous knowledge that the students really do not have, or the lecturer repeats what the students are supposed to know from other subjects, b) the lecturer does not include items that are necessary for the proper development of other materials, and c) the student recognizes the subject as separate from the others.

All these situations should be taken into account and properly solved, especially for the new degrees that are about to start in a few months.

This paper presents a methodology developed for lecturers to be applied in their final-year subjects for the Degree of Forest Engineering, in order to: a) establish the level of knowledge that students should bring from other subjects to properly address certain course; b) establish the level of knowledge that other subjects need from certain course, c) set up possible works or case studies that, based on the knowledge that comes from the different subjects, could help in providing a more comprehensive and integrated vision of forestry.

The results reached in this project allow for: a) establishing information flows between involved lectures and helping in solve the three mentioned problems, and b) developing a methodology that could be applied to other degrees with similar problems.