Working in Terms of Competences: Activities Designed Using Active Methodologies

Abstract

Spanish Higher Education is converging towards the creation of a European space of mutual recognition of University degrees. In order to achieve this objective, three changes have been introduced: a regulation that affects the structure of degrees, a common measurement system for the accomplishment of degree recognition (the ECTS) and a quality control system. The adoption of the ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) involves a conceptual reform of the organisation of the Higher Education curriculi, as new models of training are to be created based on student’s own work. Universities must design new curriculi based on the development of competences that prepare students for accomplishing functions and tasks specified in their academic and professional profiles. In other words, there is an increasing concern that a significant result of this process will consist of a transition towards a new Higher Education system, highly based on student’s own work. On the other hand, there is evidence concerning the two main facts that influence student’s learning. First, students improve their own learning when doing, making, writing, designing, creating, and solving. Passivity dampens students' motivation and curiosity. Second, when students enrol in a course of their own choice, their learning motivation increases. Therefore, two of the main implications of this new model are that students are now relocated to the centre of the educational system, and training is now oriented towards to achievement of results. In other words, we are evolving from a system based on the traditional transmission of knowledge, to a new one based on the development of competences (ICE, 2006; Gonzalez & Wagenar, 2003). Moreover, every degree’s competences must be based both on the identity of the profession to be undertaken by students and by demands in labour. This facilitates the identification of the necessary educative elements for achieving the established goals, and implies that within each subject, lecturers must develop activities that will allow students to develop the competences established in their academic profiles. Therefore, this new system also implies a change in the role of lecturers. In Sect. 2 we explore in further detail the changes in the role of the lecturer. In Sect. 3, we elaborate on the meaning of “working in terms of competences”, lay out the competences 22