Abstract:

Introduction:
In the adaptation of a subject to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), the skills that students must develop represent the central axis. Thus, the subjects need to be organized around them and some aspects such as teaching modalities or evaluation methods must be designed and distributed in order to make students develop those skills.

Objective:
Implement teaching methodologies to promote the development of specific- and cross-skills in the course “Management of Food Quality and Safety” tough in the 4th year of “Food Sciences and Technology” Degree at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).

Methods:
New teaching methodologies were carried out in a group of 20 students that coursed the subject “Management of Food Quality and Safety” in the 4th year of the Degree in “Food Sciences and Technology”. The distribution of teaching modalities and their contribution to the final score of the subject were as follows: master classes (40% of the final score), team work (30% of the score), classroom practices (20% of the score) and laboratory practices (10% of the score).

The evaluation tools were:
1. A final exam about contents from the master classes (short questions),
2. A team work and its oral defense, an exam about classroom practices (exercises) and a report on laboratory practices.

The team work activity was based on a simulative implementation of a quality management system in a food industry. Students had to present a hard copy of their work (20% of the final score), explain it orally (5% of the final score) and besides, they had to evaluate in a critical way the works presented by the rest of their colleagues (5% of the final score). This final activity led to a short discussion in class where students had to defend their own work and judge the rest of the works. When the course finished, students filled in a satisfaction questionnaire and thus their opinion about both, the way of implantation of the new subject in the degree and the way of distributing the teaching modalities, was collected.

Results:
Most of the students (>85%) agreed with the distribution of teaching modalities and with the contribution of each activity to the final score. They considered that the used methodologies helped them understand the theoretical part of the subject. Moreover, students stated that the team work as well as its oral presentation and debate promoted the development of cross curricular skills (taking decisions in real situations, communicative skills development, team working, etc.). The scores obtained in each of the practical methodologies were, in general, higher (8.9±1.3) than those obtained in the final exam (7.0±1.1).

Conclusion:
Students accepted with motivation and interest the proposed methodologies and they considered that these methodologies are helpful for a better process of learning and for the achievement of cross skills.

Keywords:

European Higher Education Area (EHEA), methodology, evaluation, skills.