Abstract:

The Real Social Project group started at the Faculty of Communication in Madrid, within the framework of the new teaching strategies at the Complutense University. A group of teachers began working with NGOs in 1999, as communication consultants of such entities, always collaborating with students to achieve collective awareness of social issues, while learning in a practical way. The group is currently recognized by the Rectorate of the UCM, within the teaching innovation projects.

Over the past twelve years, the method has been improved in different ways. Our team started developing communication campaigns for diverse non profit organizations as an extra academic activity for Advertising students, which allowed them to obtain the different skills they will need in their professional future and in order to be responsible members of tomorrows’ sustainable society. Little by little, the project became the core method of lecturing for the professors taking part in the project, applied in many subjects within the area of persuasive communication, journalism and audiovisual communication. Nowadays, this project is carried out at different universities of Europe, working with several professors who use similar teaching methods. So the project has been globalized.

In this paper we would like to present another, new aspect of the project: coaching and mentoring. The project forms the students not only in the aspects of the real working life, such as communication skills, programme design, applied research and media writing skills, but also in other skills that the enterprises are going to demand them in a near future, but the university normally does not offer, such as working in teams, adaptation capability, fluency in foreign languages, public speaking and transmitting knowledge to junior workers. Through this methodology, the students are able to obtain some skills, out of reach of traditional lecturing methods and which they are going to need in their professional lives as much as the package of strictly technical skills and theory framework. In this paper, apart from the method, we would like to share some of our most recent experiences applied in the work with NGOS and related with the subjects we teach.

The scheme of work is the following: the students start to work within the method when they are in the first years of their careers and two years later, they have had got a real experience that allows them to be prepared for their future jobs. This part of the project is understood as couching, where lecturers and NGO collaborate and share their knowledge with students. Besides, during this part of the project, they are able to lead a mentoring programme for the students who are beginning, carried out by the more experienced senior students who have taken active part in the project and designed several investigation and research plans for NGOS. So finally, we have always students who teach other students.

The real Social project is useful for both types of skills, both tangible, material and intangible, immaterial ones. After these innovative experiences our students are equipped with new skills and insights, which can benefit both their career and their knowledge, giving them a competitive advantage in tomorrows’ highly competitive work market.

Keywords:

Innovative learning method, real social project.