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The new educational scenario promoted by the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) has brought significant changes in the day-to-day teaching of undergraduate degrees. Among these changes we can mention the appearance of a Final Project as a compulsory subject in all degrees, including the degree in Business Administration. This paper examines the experience in this regard of the Faculty of Business Administration and Tourism of the University of Vigo. This Faculty located in the Ourense Campus already has two years of experience as regards teaching and academic organization of the Final Project since its establishment in the academic year 2010-11. For this purpose the paper begins by reviewing the main characteristics of the Final Project. This review is made in the Spanish context of the new degrees adapted to the EHEA and paying special attention to the degree in Business Administration. Then we present the particular case of this Faculty where you can identify the main pillars on which its implementation was based as well as the future challenges that those responsible for the Faculty still face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tutoring is one of the methodological resources which has undoubtedly experienced a deepest evolution since the implantation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Tutorial conception as a merely legal obligation to address students' doubts has given rise to the use of tutorials as one of the most useful methods to develop certain skills and competences, in addition to its contribution to the learning of the subject in which they are inserted. This paper analyzes, from the perspective of developed innovative teaching experiences, the evolution of traditional mentoring until the current use that can be made of them as an interactive forum of equals, and, moreover, suggesting a classification. Finally, this paper shows a new breakthrough in the role of tutoring supported on new technologies as a suitable means of contrasting opinions, encouraging critical thinking and building student's autonomous thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an innovative approach to improving teacher quality that is being developed at the Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Sciences of the UPV / EHU, taking the opportunity arose with the configuration of the new curricula for their convergence in the European Higher Education Area. It is framed in the broader context of organizational change, curriculum and cultural, that is assuming the implementation of a modular design of the new degree (Education and Social Education), working in teams coordinated and with the institutional support of the UPV. The concrete innovation is presented, describes one of the seven modules of the new degree of Social Education, and underlines the work done by the faculty team who teach the five subjects that make up the module in the two official languages: Basque and Spanish, because they must plan, develop and evaluate the interdisciplinary activity in a coordinated manner. We reflect in this paper on the potential that the modular structure offers to undertake real change in the culture of teaching practice, and how to manage key factors to ensure the transition to a teaching model active, participatory and collaborative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current crisis, unsustainable growth, financial scandals involves reflection on the role of universities in the professional training, particularly those who have to manage businesses. On this issue, there is a perception that the teaching of ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) is insufficient (Baetz and Sharp, 2004; Kashyap et al., 2006). In this regard, universities play a fundamental role due both to the impact of the incorporation of CSR into the design of their study and research programs, and its incorporation into universities' mission, vision, and corporate strategy (Muijen, 2004). Then, the present study focuses jon analyzing both the definition of educational objectives and skills development to be acquired by students as the level of inclusion of CSR offered by Spanish universities. In particular, the present paper focuses on analyzing reports verified by National Agency for Quality Assessment of degrees related to the organizational management area implemented in the 2010-2011 academic course, which degrees has been developed based on European Higher Education Area. Based on previous papers, the results of the present paper show that the Bologna process and the Higher Education reform in Spanish universities have promoted an increase of the presence of CSR in the business education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A three-stage study is being performed in order to assess the adaptation of the traineeships to the EHEA Degrees at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF). First, the situation previous to the EHEA deployment was considered. Second, the necessary changes due to the EHEA as forecasted were considered. Third, the current research, which is still in progress, aims to check student satisfaction in traineeships. This working paper describes thoroughly the methodology, and identifies room for improvement in traineeship performance. As a first conclusion we have found that the incorporation of the traineeships as a curricular subject in the degree studies has been a success, because the students' satisfaction level has increased. Their satisfaction is acceptably high with technical aspects (assignment process, preliminary information, monitoring, etc.) and it is very high with their motivation. Four out of five students believe it has been very important for them do the internships well. Furthermore, with regard to the role of the internships in the labour integration of university graduates, we found that one third of the trainees received an offer to continue the practicums or a labour contract. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the last decades of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, the teaching of English for specific and/or professional and academic purposes has probably constituted one of the most innovative areas in the Spanish University. With the advent of the Bologna reform, the theory and praxis of this dynamic field of knowledge has enhanced its range of activity, so as to include not only students, but also lecturers, whithin its concerns. The result can be measured by the innumerable variety of CLIL (Content Language Integrated Learning) teacher training experiences carried out along the Spanish Tertiary Education geography. This paper has two main purposes: on one hand, to give the account of the CLIL teacher training at the UPCT (included in the larger frame of teaching innovation programs), under its corresponding theoretical approach and bearing in mind the particular circumstances of the institution. On the other hand, to pose questions about the future perspectives of similar experiences in a teaching context that is becoming more and more complex and 'hybrid' from its very foundations. The partial conclusions of this study depict a global teaching/professional scenario that is both challenging and appealing, which must be seriously dealt with from the Universities and our common European administrative framework alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last half of the 20th century games have taken on an important role as a learning methodology in university studies. Most of the research in this field has focused on computer games; however literature regarding games that don't use computers is still very scarce. In the experience described in this paper we have created a cooperative team tournament game without computers in which students do not compete against each other but target on achieving a score. Besides, it does not require neither structured teams nor having the same number of players. Our findings indicate that teams games tournamenst improve the development of students' general skills and substantially increases their academic performance. The immediate consequence is that we have a new, more versatile game format that overcomes the limitations of its precedents when applied to university studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a software tool designed to enhance the tutoring assistance in the context of the European Higher Education Area as a way to improve the service offered to students in their learning process. This tool, named Tutorial Action, allows to the students the online booking of face-to-face tutoring with their teachers, and allows to these teachers the management of tutoring schedules and registration of the issues addressed in each tutoring session. The research conducted in this work has aimed to determine the usefulness of the developed tool for the student attendance at tutoring. The sample analysed corresponds to grade students in Software Engineering Degree from the Technical University of Madrid. The instruments used in the research have included a questionnaire to know the opinion of the students who have composed the sample. The obtained results indicate a greater attendance at tutoring sessions in the students under study, and a positive perception of the designed tool used and the influence that these kinds of tools can have on the academic performance. These results suggest that the use of tools designed to facilitate student attendance at tutoring can contribute significantly to the student performance in their learning processes and the improvement of the service offered by the University. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education is immersed in a deep reform for its adjustment to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), where degrees and competences are validated for the whole European area. In this context, the teaching of taxation in the Degrees of Social and Law Science, as well as the rest of disciplines, goes through a period of reflection and it is starting up a series of experiences to increase the role played by the students in their learning process. In this paper we analyze the task carried out in the course Spanish Public Sector I, directed to last-year-of-a-course economics students. Most of them are digital natives and therefore the task is put into practice through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the Virtual Campus of the University of Oviedo. This experience will help us face this new period adapted to Bologna. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the creation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) universities have integrated their tutorial projects into their teaching and learning processes. The evaluation of the impact of these projects shows the need for their continued improvement so that they can become even more effective. After analyzing annually the results of tutoring activities in each of the six years since San Jorge University's tutoring project was implemented, a descriptive research has been carried out which analyses the appraisal of various aspects of university tutoring activities from the point of view of San Jorge University's undergraduate student. These aspects include the consideration of the university tutoring project as part of the learning process, the identification of needs that this project should cover, the most valued factors in a tutor and a number of proposals for improvement based on the experiences of other national and international universities. This paper presents a general descriptive analysis of the mentioned variables across the University. Results show that students consider professional development issues to be more important than both academic and personal development issues, close personal contact as the tutor's most widely valued aspect and personal interview as the most effective form of communicating with tutors. In addition, most valued proposals for improvement have been the incorporation of final year students as tutors (peer-tutoring) and the possibility of maintaining the same tutor throughout the whole student's stay at University. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The units or training centers (ICE IDES CQUID, ELC) of the eight public universities in Catalonia, constituted as Interuniversity Group on Teacher Education (GIFD), are currently undergoing a reformulation process concerning the training activities and plans being offered to university teachers, in order to facilitate the development of their teaching activity. The rethinking of their actions is born from a common interest linking the quality of university teachers' training with coherent approaches in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). This interest and concern has led the group to conduct a research study with the objective of establishing a set of standard teaching skills for the faculty staff to master, with the purpose of successfully undertaking the development of the new degree courses in line with the directives of the European Higher Education Area. This paper contains a thorough examination and analysis regarding the main features that activities and training programs aimed at teachers should include, in order to facilitate the performance of the teaching activity itself, by focusing at the work of training units or training centers, at the academic institutions where they belong, and at the related agencies, and by requesting them to update their educational tasks in order to meet the new requirements that the role of teachers demand. The aim of this work is to stimulate thought and to generate a debate on the direction that university teachers' training must follow, not only as a strategic element of the institution, but also contributing to achieve the quality objectives to which universities have committed themselves in the process of validating the new degrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of building the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) has not been without controversy and different levels of interpretation in its creation, foundation and development. The aim of this paper is to portray the situation and go beyond the theoretical study, based on official documents which have accompanied and complemented meetings of European ministers responsible for higher education. From these deep interviews, in semi-structured format, we found interesting to capture the views, expectations and perceptions of responsible and active actors in the process of building the EHEA: Guy Haug, Domenico Lenarduzzi, Marius Rubiralta, Eric Froment, Josep M. Bricall and Jorge Fernández Díaz. All of them with political and university relevance have been implicated from different institutions: European Conference of Rectors, European University Association, Department of Education of the European Commission and various Ministries of Higher Education. Their contributions have provided knowledge to contrast and offer a better understanding of EHEA display. Based on the triangulation of the contributions of the interviewees and the review of official documents and statements the study concludes that the university (together with the research - European Research Area and lifelong learning - European Lifelong Learning Area) is the fundamental hinge for society development and European seal. But it needs to adapt to changing times and to be linked to competitiveness and efficiency. It also needs to provide more and better cooperation and proximity to encourage mobility and mutual recognition. Besides, the creation of EHEA corresponds to a power struggle between the University autonomy rights, the legislative right of state governments and the European Commission's recommendations. However, all of them agree to raise a self-critical reflection as regards the diffusion of information so as to avoid possible misinterpretation or misunderstanding and enable more and better ways of participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluation is a process whose results can be used to make improvements in the teaching‐learning process. From this view, evaluation is largely used within the bound which is maintained with the students, but its contributions to teachers’ learning can be wasted. Also, the information obtained from evaluation makes it possible to regulate the factors involved in teaching. To that end, we must pay attention to all the agents (teachers, students, contents, the classroom and the academic environment) and collect data in natural contexts. Evaluation does not close the circle; this is supplemented by the adjustments which are introduced into the process using the results obtained. In a sense, the adjustment phase is turned by natural evolution into the framework of conditions for the planning phase of the next stage, and so the circle begins again (Zabalza, 2009). In this paper, in the first place, we present the students’ evaluation as a process that regulates the teacher’s practice, that is, as an instrument to analyze the teaching‐learning process. Secondly, we describe the results obtained by conducting a survey. The analysis of the information collected through that instrument was carried out on the basis proposed by Grounded Theory, a qualitative methodology developed by Strauss and Corbin (1998) that can lead to a new theoretical framework based on the collection and systematic analysis of data. Furthermore, the resulting data have been linked with other quantitative data shown in another context (Daura y Amarante, 2011). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of the European Higher Education Area in Spain has involved a substantial change in the traditional practices of university education, introducing important modifications both in the teaching methodology and in the assessment criteria. This work presents the experience carried out by the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of Albacete in the subject of Cost Accounting. The paper aims to determine whether the new methodologies used in recent years and the introduction of new criteria for assessment have had a positive impact on the improvement of the students' performance and motivation in the aforementioned subject, which is taught in the third year of the degree in Business and Management Administration (ADE). In order to achieve this, we compared the grades obtained by students during the academic years 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 (in which the ECTS methodology was applied) with those obtained in the two immediately preceding academic years: 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 (where the teaching methodology involved lectures and a final exam worth 100% of the final grade). The findings evince an overall increase in the rate of students who take the exam and participate in the process of continuous assessment as a result of the new teaching methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational cooperation has pervaded university language since the European Higher Education System was born. A group of teachers involved in Teacher Training Degrees have analyzed the essence and meaning of their cooperative teaching practices through a proposal for collaborative action-research. This project has been an exercise of professional development that has opened up opportunities for collaboration, reflection and joint action, i.e., a support for the development of the new degrees. This paper presents the analysis of the meaning of cooperative practices in higher education, as well as their light and shade, which emerge from our discussions and shared learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, technology has been incorporated into higher education, leading to the appearance of new educational scenarios. At the same time, this fact has set up several processes aimed at quality improvement. In this paper, we look at the teaching coordination experience carried out in the Faculty of Business Sciences and Tourism in Ourense. This experience consisted in the ellaboration of an activity schedule that shows the main activities for subject assessment during a semester. This experience had two main objectives: first, to facilitate the students'planning of their tasks in continuous assessment; second, to detect possible overlaps and work overloads. The Google Calendar was used to achieve these objectives, and the results obtained can be regarded as satisfactory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Practicum (post-graduate teacher education) is an area critical to the formation of a student to finish college. In the new framework of European Higher Education Area (EHEA), classroom practices have become even more important for the development of the skills required for a particular professional profile. In this paper we present the organization and monitoring of the Practicum as part of a virtual university. From a constructivist and socio-cultural teaching, learning and assessment, the proposal presents a model of practicum of the degree of 2 nd cycle of psychopedagogy, which combines mentoring and monitoring the work of students in the training center work simultaneously with a reflection on practice which takes place in the classroom of the virtual campus. The results are analyzed from the satisfaction questionnaire administered to students at the end of each semester, which assesses four areas: overall satisfaction, teaching activities, resources and assessment of learning. The application of this methodology has many benefits for students training as skill acquisition warrants intervention own psychology in context together with reflection on the contexts, purposes and objectives of the psychopedagogy intervention. The implications, advantages and disadvantages of this model of practicum are discussed taking into account the guidelines of the European Higher Education Area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we show the most relevant results of the first year of implementation of the Educational Evaluation National Network and University Teaching. The basic methodology used was action-research on formative assessment practices in higher education, in subjects taught by teachers members of the net, with a total of 41 cases. The results present the advantages that this assessment system meant both for students and for teachers involved, including the greater involvement and motivation of students, as well as further development of students' autonomy. Some difficulties were also detected, such as excess work for the teachers or the lack of habit of students in formative assessment processes. The project we have developed has a direct effect on the university teaching practice and lead us to consider the formative evaluation as an essential element to renew our teaching practice and as a good alternative for dealing with the changes arising from the European Higher Education Area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present the results arising from a project to the preparation and testing of a multimedia material to promoting autonomous learning in the acquisition of specific competences of the Ecology practices course, in Biology studies at the Universitat de les Illes Balears (UIB). The main objective lies in the gradual adaptation to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) from greater coordination among teachers and the acquisition of new resources for teaching. The results obtained in the materials experimentation can be considered significantly positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) laid the foundations for a model of competency-based training. In this sense, there are several proposals suggest working on the ability for teamworking in activities developing the content of one or several subjects. However, they aren't so common in assessment tasks. This paper contains an application of Teams-Games-Tournament (DeVries and Edwards, 1973) to carry out the assessment of a subject. Teams-Games-Tournament is an alternative to traditional assessment tests based not on individual assessment, but on the development and group collaboration to achieve common goals. The implications, advantages and disadvantages of the application of this technique are discussed in the framework of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents some findings of an evaluation study conducted in five spanish universities on the design of a 'FORCOM Guides for Self-Assessment Teaching Competencies'. This device has been developed to help university teachers to cope with the teaching demands of EHEA. Data collected in a previous teaching needs? assessment were the grounds of the very first design of the guide. Sixteen senior university teachers - of any scientific area- had been demanded, firstly, implementing the Guide, and next, they had been required in order to look for their perceptions about: a) the ease and other aspects of practical management of the Guides ('format evaluation'), and b) the utility and suitability of its content to teachers? teaching needs ('content evaluation'). Data analysis points to: 1) the validity and utility of the created device, especially for helping well experienced teachers in EHEA; 2) its capability the increase the teaching technical knowledge of the teacher, and 3) some change demands related with the present format and with the content of the Guides, as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents four experiences based on the use of portfolios as a way to assist students learning of both subject knowledge and generic skills. In three of them the portfolio is integrated as an element that helps students to organize their work in the subject, to reflect on their learning and to evaluate their results. The portfolio is also presented as a formative and summative assessment tool. In the last experience, the portfolio aims to provide students with the opportunity to reflect on the degree to which have developed generic skills after completing studies. In this case, students construct a wiki where reflections and samples of their best projects and exercises can be organized to demonstrate the achievement of such learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]