AN “ORIENTED STUDY GUIDE” ON INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEER STUDENTS WITHIN THE EUROPEAN HIGHER EDUCATION AREA

One of the most important changes in the educational system within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is focused on the development of the student ability to work autonomously, and there are many educational techniques and works concerning this topic [1]. Some interesting methodologies for the enhancement of the autonomous work of the student have been used in Social Sciences [1], however, in Technical Science degrees these have been studied in a lesser extent.
This work describes the design, adaptation and development of novel academic methodologies in the teaching process of the Infrared Spectroscopy in the subject Instrumental Analysis for Chemical Engineering students at the Rey Juan Carlos University (Spain).
In this context, an Oriented Study Guide on Infrared Spectroscopy for the students has been designed in order to help the students in the deepening and widening of the contents of this part of the subject. This guide has been prepared in order to get more active participation of the students in the different theoretical and practical activities that have been proposed. Therefore, the Oriented Study Guide will let the student to know with more detail the objectives of the knowledge, the expected subject-specific competences development and the evaluation process. In addition, the Oriented Study Guide on Infrared Spectroscopy will facilitate the student to control the knowledge process within the subject.
The Oriented Study Guide on Infrared Spectroscopy contains a very detailed working plan on the different theoretical aspects of the technique, as well as some other key examples and activities to be carried out by the students during their learning process, that may help in the development of the generic competences such as planning and time management, capacity of analysis and synthesis and problem-solving. In addition, different teamwork theoretical and practical activities within the EHEA have been included. Finally, the Oriented Study Guide contains the evaluation criteria for these activities which will include the evaluation of the subject knowledge as well as the evaluation of the competences.

References:
[1] Villa, A. y Poblete M. “Aprendizaje basado en competencias” Ed. Mensajero, Bilbao (2007).