Abstract:

New ways of life and the increasing of technologies make necessary redefining higher education. Dealing with students who are prepared to look up information all around the meanings, a distinct way of teaching, collaborating with them, is a necessary challenge for teachers. The creative capacity they show, and our background in art and art education are enabling new ways of learning and teaching.

Four years ago, in the ETSIDI (School of Engineering in Industrial Design of the Polytechnic University of Madrid-SPAIN), an association called "ETSIDI - Design" was born. Since then, it has been able to mobilise hundreds of students, encouraging them to participate in active projects from different fields. They are highly alive even in their spare time and have created a community that is willing to share and help each other.

The origin was an Innovation Project set in our Engineering School in 2013. Jaime Garcia Vaquero, a scholarship student, took care of the management and implementation of the Etsidi Design Blog. Later on, working with DRO, Student Association created by Javier Jiménez Rueda and Javier Pérez Arranz, they founded the current Etsidi Design Association. It's an association not only focused on design, but also on engineering, technology, culture, art and other events related to the human behaviour and interest.

Since then we have been collaborating together in the way of promoting an horizontal learning, cooperating with creative and artistic projects, facilitating the means of our School and hearing them in order to know their interests so as to integrate them in our education plans. We have involved them to participate with proposals in our classes.

Our teaching methodologies are anchored in the XIX century and we think that a new vision in the higher education is mandatory, involving students in their learning and collaborating with them bringing new proposals into classes, as the blog, conferences, tutorials, art and design exhibition visits, classes à la carte, design fairs organized by them. They will be able to transmit later on in the blog and to other students or teachers all new contributions.Communication with their mates is essential to make this project works.

Teachers have to facilitate this way of learning that approaches students to reality and to their preferences in learning. We base our proposal on the sense of taking advantage of all the knowledge students have with the only intention of helping them to extract it in collaboration of our institution so they will be better prepared to their professional career.

Keywords:

Horizontal learning, Art and Design Education, Student Association, collaborative work, Long Life Learning.