Abstract:

The changes that arise from the Bologna Process within the framework of the European Higher Education Area have had an impact in the higher education teachers’ training. More specifically, higher education institutions face now the challenge of training teachers who put their students at the centre of the teaching-learning process and who are capable of engaging them in meaningful learning and reflective thinking.

To face these challenges, during the 2017-2019 period, the University of Barcelona developed an institutional project with five strategic lines based on the needs detected among the teachers. These five strategic lines were: problem-based learning, flipped classroom (Just in Time Teaching and Team Based Learning), gamification, electronic portfolio and simulation (evaluative and formative). Within the project, the teachers were trained in these strategies as they participated in a formative process guided by an expert. This formative process consisted in the collaboration of the teachers to design their lessons according to one of the strategic lines, the observation of the lessons that their colleagues were delivering and, finally, the discussion of what they have previously observed.

Our research followed this formative process to understand its impact from the students’ perspective. To that end, we observed and video-recorded the process, analysed 184 questionnaires from students who attended and participated in the lessons designed (34% from the odontology degree and 66% from the nursing degree), and conducted eight in-depth interviews and two focus groups.

The results presented in this paper respond to two dimensions related to the impact that the institutional project’s innovations have had on the students: the reaction level and the self-perception about the learning achieved. In general, within the first dimension, it is worth highlighting the high satisfaction of the students with the sessions where the innovations were applied (4,5 / 5). The students considered that the innovations positively influenced their motivation and allowed them to better understand the usefulness of the contents worked. Their greatest criticism was the large amount of homework involved, since they were accustomed to methodologies in which they adopted a more passive role. Regarding the second dimension, the students considered that the active role that they needed to display when using these methodologies, contributed to engage better with the contents of the sessions (3.9 / 5).

In general, we found that the innovation actions carried out had a positive impact on the students’ learning processes. However, we want to highlight a contradictory aspect between the positive evaluation that the students made about the active role that these methodologies allowed and, at the same time, some discomforts we observed, precisely, in relation to the breaking of the regular passive academic culture. These results lead leads us to continue rethinking the ways to make the educational agents move towards new ways of being and understanding their learning processes in the university.

Keywords:

Higher Education, Teaching Innovation, Teacher Education, Learning, Academic Cultures.