Abstract:

One of the aspects that best captures the interest of students, and the most neglected, is the possibility of offering the practical application of what is learned, favoring experiences that make this possible. Promoting interrelation and involvement with reality is one of the most motivating elements. For all these reasons, we present the action developed in which we are committed to participatory techniques, more specifically, to the development of projects related to the professional interests of the first-year students of the Degree in Chemistry. According to the surveys we carried out with our students, the main orientations were Research, Teaching and Bio-Entrepreneurship.

The specific teaching objectives were:
i) to strengthen the group, integrate, disinhibit, encourage;
ii) to stimulate the exchange of experiences, ideas and opinions;
iii) to develop divergent and creative thinking;
iv) to quickly promote student participation, capturing their interest and involving them in the teaching/learning process; and
v) to promote the learning of diverse knowledge and its collective construction, among others.

The experience was carried out by all the students of the Biology subject, who were distributed in work teams of 4-6 students. The groups chose a topic from among the orientations requested by the students:
i) Research (Support Centres);
ii) Teaching (Institute of Education Sciences);
iii) Bio-Entrepreneurship (Office for the Transfer of Research Results);
iv) Forensic Science Police.

The dynamic of the action is based on three main phases:
- Initial session. In this session, objectives, methodology and evaluation criteria were clarified. The instructors involved provided the working groups with the corresponding contact. At this point, the enquiry of the group members began.
- Development sessions. Throughout several meetings with the instructors, the members of the teams had to undertake the following objectives:
i) search for information from the contact provided (description of the services studied, equipment, function and applications);
ii) interview with experts;
iii) contextualization according to their professional interests;
iv) organization of the information and preparation of communications (posters).

All this was supervised by the instructors involved. They were also presented with the "digital" portfolio that they had to prepare during the course of the action.
- Final session. The students presented their work in a public event at the Building our Future Conference.
Assessment for learning was carried out, taking into account the influence of this one on the motivation and self-esteem of the student; and the assessment of competences, having as indicators communication skills, teamwork and responsibility, among others.

The development of a "digital" portfolio per team was used:
i) to improve reflection on learning,
ii) to stimulate student motivation,
iii) to incorporate students in the evaluation and focus it on performance, and iv) to bring the learning achieved closer to the professional tasks of the discipline.

We can conclude that the action implemented had an impact on teaching practice to the extent that what was "investigated" was motivated by the reality of professional practice, putting into context all the subjects being reviewed in the Degree and contributing to the improvement of the quality of face-to-face teaching.

Funding:
Universidad de Alcalá (UAH) "UAHEV/1121"

Keywords:

Motivation, Collaborative, Participative, Project-Based Learning, Professional interests, Undergraduates.