Abstract:

In the frame-work of the European harmonization and the new developments related to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS), the subjects to impart have to be adapted to this new teaching-learning model in which the students are the main characters in the University stage. University teachers have reinforced their roles as guides that tutorage the learning process of the students. Teachers must seek new paths to join traditional and new educational methodologies and new information and communication technologies (ICT) in order to achieve the enhancement of the academic marks of the students.
According to Bologna Agreement, the Grade in Pharmacy has been implemented during the course 2010/2011 in the Faculty of Pharmacy (Complutense University). In the second semester of the first year, our department teaches an obligatory subject: Analytical Chemistry I. We have applied an Innovative Educational Project entitled “Theory to Practice: acquiring the knowledge, capabilities, and applications of Analytical Chemistry in Pharmaceutical Sciences” in three groups of Analytical Chemistry I. The new educational methodology was applied into two groups, while the third one was taken as a control group.
The main objective of this project was the achievement of the motivation of students measured by the continuous attendance to the course along the full semester (>85%), the development of a critical sense during a fruitful discussion classroom, the home-work (more than 75% of the students have made more than the 50% of the proposed exercises), the becoming of the relevance of the Analytical Chemistry (75% of the students have made works about the application of the Analytical Chemistry in Pharmaceutical Sciences), and the resolution of real problems in the laboratory previously resolved theoretically as home-work by the students, what serves as an auto-evaluation for the students (75% of the students have made the tutorage practices in the laboratory), because they can check how they are progressing in the acquisition of the knowledge and the capabilities of Analytical Chemistry.
The achievement of this objective produced two notable consequences. The former was the motivation of the University teachers, fed back by the high motivation showed of the students. The latter was the successful marks obtained with regard to the control group.
At the end of the course a survey was distributed to the students containing many queries and questions regarding to their degree of satisfaction about this new educational methodology applied. A statistical study of the surveys answered by the students showed a very high degree of satisfaction.

Keywords:

European Harmonization, tutorial activities, auto-evaluation, undergraduate Analytical Chemistry.