Abstract:

We acknowledge the importance of teaching innovation as a driver of motivation and interest of students and teachers, while it is useful to decrease the percentage of students with low academic achievement. In this article, we discuss how to foster teaching innovation in Applied Economics. To this end, we have aimed to implement Project-Based Learning (PrBL) in the subject Global and Spanish Political Economy. The subject has been taught during the first semester of the 2020/2021 academic year.

Throughout previous courses, we find two major problems:
(i) it is difficult for professors in charge to coordinate and
(ii) motivation of students at the beginning of the course is below its potentials.

To overcome this problem, students did a country report during the whole semester and this fact allowed us to change to an exam with less theoretical contents. The impact of this teaching innovation has been assessed using a qualitative perspective provided by a survey taken by students. According to students´ perceptions and feelings, their motivation and attitude towards the subject has increased after doing the country report. We also find how grades are much better compared to previous academic years. Finally, we conclude that this experience of teaching innovation has impacted positively on attitudes and performance of students in the subject and, as a consequence, it may be considered as successful. However, there may be certain critical points for further reflection.

Keywords:

Applied Economics, Project-Based Learning, Country analysis, Teaching innovation, qualitative analysis.