Abstract:

The multidisciplinary teaching team in the Faculty of Pharmacy has participated in all the actions focused in the support and formation of the beginner professor and in the improvement of the teaching of the University of Granada. Nowadays, we are a group of 7 experienced professors (with 20 years of experience in teaching) and 14 beginner professors of different departments with different professional categories teaching in three degrees of the faculty: “Pharmacy”, “Human Nutrition and Dietetic”, “Food Science and Technology”. In every academic course, new beginner professors are incorporated to the team. With this initiative, We try to make use of the human resources, including professors with experience and motivation, to help to the formation and integration of those partners who begin their work as professor and to work from the experience accumulated in the academic courses. Several activities of mentoring are performed (progress cycles, recorded classes and joint visualization) and others of formation, by means of different activities, according to the needs of the new professors in order to:
- Develop a reflective attitude of the didactic performance of the professor.
- Promote the exchange of teaching experiences between experimented and beginner professors.
- Supply tools to help the professor to advise students in their university education.
- Acquire and/or to improve the communicative skills in the classroom.
- Acquire and/or to improve skills of planning and to develop activities of autonomous work of the students.

It is necessary to bear in mind that in the end the benefit is mutual between experimented and beginner professors. And, of course, the objective is to benefit the student, and the progress of the quality of the teaching.

The mentoring allows to perform activities which benefit not only to the beginner professor but also to the experimented professor, since there are activities that allow to know innovative skills in the teaching, share experiences, and finally improve the teaching practice.

In conclusion, the new professors and the mentors value positively the experience throughout this time and consider that:
- It is good to develop mentorship systems in departments or teaching groups, which will benefit the teaching-learning process but always with institutional support, resources and recognition.
- The education process implies a few teaching competences that have to be learned and developed through their professional careers.
- There is a long way to train good professors.
- It is important to learn from mistakes and to share the wise moves.
- The figure of the mentor is a human and professional support.
- The professors must be to the service of the students and to offer them a teaching of quality renewed and improved every day.

A professional of the teaching, a university professor, should not only have a high specialization in proper scientific knowledge of his matter, but also a high knowledge of what it is supposed to be a good professor. Due to this, we should investigate about university teaching.

Keywords:

Higher education, teaching innovation, cooperative learning, mentoring.