Abstract:

The development of the competences is a main concern for Higher Education institutions. Different methodological approaches may contribute to a more student-centred, hands-on approach. Challenge-based learning (CBL) is an educational practice in which students collaborate with their communities, face real situations and make decisions to design a solution to overcome a challenge arranged in agreement with their educators.

In the course "Research in Food Microbiology using Molecular Techniques" (IMATM) belonging to the Master's Degree in Food Science and Engineering (ETSIAMN, Universitat Politècnica de València) the challenge “Defense of a molecular biology technique in front of a panel of expert researchers” has been undertaken. It was carried out during the 19/20 and 20/21 courses. In this challenge, students had to acquire knowledge in any of the techniques initially proposed for their relevance in food microbiology in order to be able, at the end of the course, to explain and defend them in front of a panel of experts in this field. Their learning was supported by simultaneous laboratory practices in these techniques. For the development of the challenge, the 6 and 8 students participating in each of the two courses were divided into groups of 2 people and a molecular technique was randomly assigned to them. The students carried out a search in scientific databases for articles related to this technique and prepared a written work (deliverable 1) and an oral presentation (deliverable 2) that they gave individually to a member of each of the other groups, solving all the doubts that appeared. Subsequently, following a distribution based on the Aronson puzzle, new pairs of students different from the initial ones were formed and they had to present any of the techniques explained before in front of a panel of expert microbiologists, supported by their own presentation (deliverable 3).

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unexpected shift from on-site course delivery to courses delivered fully or partially online. Consequently, the development and evaluation of the competences defined for the degrees will probably be affected by these changes, for which it will be necessary to redefine activities and methodologies and adapt the evaluation processes. Due to the current situation, during the 2020-2021 academic year an online version of the CBL was tested using Microsoft Teams. The progress of the works (deliverables 1 and 2) has been followed through virtual meetings and both the presentations of the works to the other groups and the final presentation in front of the panel of experts were made through this platform. For the final evaluation by the panel of experts, rubrics previously developed by the professor were used. The students knew these rubrics before making the presentation.

The results show that not only do both groups of students claim to have acquired the skills to a greater extent, but they also perceive similarly that their learning process based on CBL was more motivating than following a classic learning methodology.

Keywords:

Challenge-based learning, Higher Education innovation, competence assessment, COVID-19, online methodologies.