Abstract:

The new scenario created by the Bologna Declaration and the European Higher Education Area has meant important changes in the university education. Among them, it is important to emphasize those related to the learning and teaching methodologies and the planning of the subjects.

Apart from that, in this new context the exchange programmes have also experienced a great development. In addition to the students exchange programmes, nowadays the teaching staff mobility is being greatly encouraged by several programmes and grants, as European Erasmus+ one.

Here, it is described the teaching staff exchange experience of the author in the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria (Portugal), done thanks to an Erasmus grant. The author currently works as an assistant professor at University of Alicante (Spain) and he teaches at Civil Engineering and Arquitecture degrees and master’s degrees. During the teaching staff mobility, the author participated in several classes of Civil Engenieering degree and master’s degree of the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria.

Throughout this work, first of all a comparison between the abovementioned degrees at University of Alicante and Polytechnic Institute of Leiria will be made. After that, the different activities performed during the teaching staff exchange experience will be explained in detail, as well as, the found difficulties and the proposals to improve future experiences. As a conclusion, in general terms the exchange experience was satisfactory and very useful for the author.

Keywords:

Teaching staff exchange, mobility experience, Erasmus, Civil Engineering, European Higher Education Area.