THE PROBLEM OF LEARNING GROUPS IN SPANISH UNIVERSITIES WITHIN THE EUROPEAN SPACE FOR HIGHER EDUCATION: SOME TECHNIQUES FOR THE CONTINUOUS EVALUATION

Until now, the system of review of the student in the Spanish public Universities was based on making more or less regular testing of assimilation of knowledge. With the implementation of the Bologna process, the teacher assumes the role of monitor with a guidance function. Now the teacher must evaluate the learning process of students, not to punish their negative results merely, and to help them achieve learning objectives through continuous monitoring of their work. In addition, the new system aims to verify competences obtained by the own student in each subject. This way, all teaching procedures to facilitate the monitoring of student learning during their university life, will play a leading role. Continuous evaluation means to assess the whole learning process of the students. To this end, the professor will perform the monitoring of the students work and will value periodically the knowledge and abilities that they acquire. This process can be quite effective and controlled when the number of students involved is relatively small (up to 20 or 25), but becomes a problem when groups are numerous, quite common situation in the Spanish public universities. This paper discusses about this issue from the viewpoint of both, (student and teacher) involved in the learning and continuous evaluation process and proposes some specific techniques to meet this challenge. Such practices have been used by the presenters with their students and are characterized by helping to develop self-criticism, self-assessment, group work and facilitate professor the task of monitoring the learning and evaluation process.