Problem-Based learning and the use of new learningteaching methodology

Abstract

The introduction of new methodologies of teaching-learning in the Spanish University system is a revolution since it supposes to think in a new university, new methods, new role for the students and the faculty staff, material and personnel resources, really, a new University based on the quality of teaching, the learning and the continuous formation. The reform that supposes the European convergence has made in the recent years necessary to adapt the subjects to ECTS system for which the pilot groups and courses have been an extraordinarily valuable element, an indispensable work to reach the organization and the structure of the new Degree Studies and, on the other hand, to try the new methodologies of education and learning. Until now,, the knowledge transmission in the Spanish Universities has been based essentially on the mere exhibition of conceptual contents, having been the work of the student very limited to copy notes, to memorise data and concepts and to reproduce them in written examinations. The new concept of the university studies introduces new practices of quality in teaching that transfer the attention to the process of learning of the student who determine the activity of the teacher changing his role in the process. Therefore, the teacher becomes guide and support of a learning process that necessarily must motivate, foment the work and the self-training, all this related to the reasoning thought and to the professional reality. We understand that implementing the new educational methodology that grants an active paper to the student and a director role, as guide and adviser, to the teacher, implies the use of information and communication technologies that make Virtual Campus UCM an essential tool that it comprises inseparable of the methodology. In our educational work we granted some students works a new dimension in Virtual Campus UCM incorporating them to a web page and, on the other hand, we followed the line of active participation of the students and old students through the presentation of seminaries. Finally, we develope the learning-based problems using two types of cases: 1) cases presented by specialists to be analyzed by the students and used by the teacher as guide to reach objectives of knowledge, 2) cases presented/displayed to the students after its resolution applying principles and procedures.