Abstract:

In the last years, the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) has promoted the formation of teaching teams to improve the quality and innovation in university education. The RIAD teaching team was constituted in 2010, being its main aim to develop generic skills in different degrees taught in the UPV, from a project-based teaching-learning model. The present article aims to show the strengths and weaknesses of the team, as well as the different innovation and educational improvement projects (PIME) undertaken. The team is interdisciplinary in nature; its greatest strength is the heterogeneity of its members, which belong to different UPV departments (Engineering Projects, Town Planning, Business Organization, Food Technology, Architectural Composition, Vegetable Production, Drawing, and Hydraulics and Environment) and teach in different degrees. The university environment promotes the exchange between teachers and students in different disciplines that share common goals. This feature together with a methodology of projects developed in team-based learning encourages the emergence of synergies and a university education closer to professional practice. It was necessary to design a project that includes the peculiarities associated with the diverse disciplines involved. The project of a winery design, from a global point of view, was considered the best option, since besides the fact that it could meet the different disciplines, the case study could become a real project. Defined the main objective, successive projects of innovation and educational improvement have been developed. The first PIME was conducted in the academic year 2010 / 2011 and was entitled "Development of a methodology of teaching-learning oriented towards the acquisition of skills through the development of multidisciplinary projects". This motivating methodological approach resulted in positive effects in the process of teaching-learning in the different degrees involved. The project continued in the following year (2011 / 2012) focusing the efforts in the evaluation methologies. The PIME was entitled "Development and evaluation of cross-disciplinary skills through interdisciplinary teaching-learning methodologies". The obligations arising from such a complex project promoted the appearance of a blog as a forum for interaction between teachers and students, being the germ for the PIME in 2012 / 2013 "Blog as a virtual portfolio of an interdisciplinary project". Finally, in the year 2013 / 2014, the team attempted to go further with the blog tool, and so asked for the the PIME "Blog as a virtual portfolio of an interdisciplinary project II: integration into social networks" to achieve greater visibility of the blog from the new media. Due to the current economic situation, the investment in university education has been reduced, thus the monetary support to the team has been cut. Yet the RIAD team will be still standing and fighting to improve teaching in UPV.