Abstract:

We want to explain a teaching innovation experience implemented by the Teaching Innovation Group of the National University of Distance Education (hereinafter, UNED) University Excellence: Transversal Critical Knowledge, led by Professor of Procedural Law Sonia Calaza López, in two associated centers of UNED (Bergara and Portugalete) in school year 2020/2021

The teaching innovation project that is presented (named “Analysis and intervention in Procedural Law tutoring in order to avoid and minimize university dropouts in the first year of Law Degree. Pilot experience in (the three associated centers of UNED of) Euskadi ”) and whose implementation is narrated and tries to be assess, in this communication, was configured in order to verify and intervene in a general problem of the UNED: university dropout in the first year of official Bachelor's degrees. The aim was to verify and prove the problem, in order to, later on, create the opportunity to address it through an intervention project in tutoring, under the firm belief that this own resource of UNED configures an excellent field of action in this regard. The teaching Innovation Group decided to implement it in the tutoring of Introduction to Procedure law subject, without prejudice to the fact that a team of multidisciplinary professors - all the members of the Teaching Innovation Group mentioned- participated in its forecasting and evaluation.

In the communication we will explain the genesis of the project, the objectives set and the actions of the team of teachers, underlining their work with students. Due to the modifications caused by the pandemic, the initial plan from the one that was actually implemented will be differentiated.

We will also place special emphasis on its pedagogical sources. It is a very important issue because until the articulation of the Single European Higher Education Area, through the so-called Bologna Plan, university teaching and learning drank from the traditional behaviorist methodology: teacher masterfully explained the lesson, students took notes and clarified their doubts, in the classroom, with the his/her help, and, finally, in the exam, their level of knowledge was controlled and evaluated. It was a method based on the contents and not on students’ skills and competencies, whose focus was almost more on teacher than on student. In a paradigm shift, giving prominence to students and their acquisition of competences, the behaviorist pedagogy has been replaced by the constructivist one, as the axis of the university teaching-learning process. Under this new model or archetype of teaching-learning process, university student, in general, and Law student, in particular, ceases to be a mere witness of his learning process and becomes its architect, always with the help of the teacher. For that purpose, new teaching methodologies and guidelines are followed, specifically, in the experience that we are going to relate, cooperative learning, problem-based learning and case method.

Keywords:

University, dropout, Law Degree, teaching innovation experience.