MICRO-SEMINARS AS AN INNOVATIVE METHODOLOGY FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNDERGRADUATE AND POSTGRADUATE HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS. A CASE STUDY

Throughout this paper, we report the experience of the use of micro-seminars within bachelor’s and master's degree programs. As part of this experience, we used a flipped version of the micro-seminar concept, where the student prepares and presents the seminar in class to the other students and lecturers.

The methodology is simple: two micro-seminars are carried out during a one-hour class period. Each micro-seminar lasts for 20 minutes. At the end of both micro-seminars, there is a 10-minute debate between the speakers and the other members of the class, including lecturers who may or may not be experts in the field.

The topic, as well as the presentation, should be innovative. The course coordinator usually proposes a list of topics, which are assigned to each student at random. Then, all students have a week to prepare the micro-seminar.

The experience was conducted over a four-year period, applied to the BS in Natural Environment Engineering, BS in Environmental Technology Engineering and the MS in Forestry Engineering programs, all of which are taught at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. A total of 220 bachelor’s students and 60 master’s students were surveyed.

The results were spectacular. The preparation and presentation of program-related topics that cannot be addressed by course lecturers on time grounds boosts student motivation. This has a huge positive impact on learning, which is reflected in the increase of applications for final-year projects and master’s theses related to these subjects (from 6% to 28% in four years).

The experience was very satisfactory, and micro-seminars were found to be a methodology with a potential for application in any branch of knowledge, driving course content updates.

In summary, this experience is innovative in that students adopt the role of delivering contents to other students and lecturers. Lecturers select very recent, contemporary, cutting-edge and informative topics. This helps students open their minds to new fields of knowledge, increases their motivation and improves their academic performance.