INTEGRATION OF PROJECT ORIENTED LEARNING AND ROLE-PLAYING METHODOLOGIES IN AN OPTIONAL SUBJECT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING DEGREE

Adaptation to European Higher Education Area has required the implementation of active methodologies that promote the involvement of students in their own learning process. On the other hand, the current scenario of accreditation of university degrees is promoting work and evaluation of certain transversal competences, in addition to those specific for each degree. In this multidisciplinary context, methodologies such as project oriented learning, problem based learning, case study method and the role-playing, are some that simultaneously allow the active participation of students and the development of transversal skills.

Although these methodologies can be applied in any course, they are specially suitable for the subjects of the last years in which students have already acquired enough knowledge and skills to be able to work in a multidisciplinary way. In the optional subject “Industrial Safety” of 4th year of Chemical Engineering Degree from the “Universitat Politècnica de València” it is essential the application of active methodologies that allow students to practice actively the identification of hazards and the subsequent implementation of preventive measures. With this objective, last academic year, lecturers decided to implement in this subject the project oriented learning methodology, in order to develop competences such as: team work, critical thinking and effective communication; as well as achieving a deeper learning of the contents of the subject. In addition, role-playing methodology was integrated in some of the class activities to approach the way of working in safety topics to professional performance.

This work describes the methodologies applied in the subject, as well as the activities of integration of role-playing inside the project oriented learning. At the end of the course, students completed an anonymous survey to assess new methodologies introduced. Assessments made in this survey are presented and analyzed in this work.