The Methodological Combination:A Teaching Innovation Project for The Improvement of University Teaching

Abstract

This presentation describes a teaching innovation project for a first-year university education subject. After several courses proposing student to make "fictitious" curricula, we proposed a "real" assignment. It consisted of designing an educational curriculum for one of the temporary exhibitions. Our methodological proposal includes four phases that combine service learning with peer mentoring. The first phase is introductory, divided in two parts. On the one hand, a session by the educational museum director, to explain the proposal for the students and their museum area. On the other hand, the students went to the artist's masterclass that was showed in that month and visited the exhibition. The second phase is service learning. Each students course group attended as participant observers in the museum's educational activities. The third part consisted of the peer mentoring. Third year students advised the first year small groups in two sessions in order to helping them with the museum assignment. Fourth and last, we considered the dissemination phase. Each group prepared a presentation to be assessed by a museum experts committee, who provided feedback on its quality, selected the best curriculum, and handed it over to the museum's pedagogical department for implementation. The application of the methodology had a positive impact on the students. An increase in grades compared to the previous year was achieved, as well as a decrease in academic failure.