The current context significantly influenced by knowledge-based societies requires a deep transformation in High Education. New social and professional demands along with the use of ICT and improved communication and mobility make it necessary to transform educational systems in order to ensure the generation, not only of competent professionals, but also of individuals capable of retraining and keep on learning throughout their lives. The latter requirements suggest an education focussed on the acquisition of updated competences and the development of autonomous learning abilities.
Taking into consideration the previously described context the main purpose of the present work has been to design and carry out an educational intervention in High Education adapted to the current training demands. We present an intervention aimed at promoting the acquisition of general and specific competences in prospective Primary School teachers, following an educational program where students are encouraged to develop a more autonomous and active learning process.
The educational strategy applied involves several stages. The first one consists of some lessons aimed at providing a theoretical framework to ensure the development of basic criteria, necessary to carry out the autonomous work stages successfully. Theoretical lessons were carried out from a constructivist perspective considering the key role of previous knowledge and the importance of the learner, taking an active part in the construction of new conceptual frameworks and meaningful learning.
The second stage was proposed as the development of a group project. The prospective Primary School teachers have to work in small groups to design a pedagogical itinerary. The purpose was to facilitate contextualized learning, as well as enhancing students’ motivation associated with the connection with real world and close interests. Thus, they had to look for a proper place to carry out their pedagogical itinerary, and gather the necessary information to design the learning activities. This stage requires a wide variety of skills such as initiative, creativity, information management and those general competences related to collaborative work such as group planning and task distribution, time management, social skills…
The quality of the collaborative work and personal contributions was assessed by the teachers through systematic observation of group sessions and the reports obtained from the forum and chats used to exchange information between the members of each group.
The third step related to the acquisition of specific professional competences was the development of the pedagogical design. They had to establish the objectives, the curricular contents to work on, the learning activities and the evaluation criteria related to the itinerary.
Finally, the students designed and developed a presentation using multimedia support working on ICT application for educational purposes and communication skills.
The students who took part in the outlined intervention showed a high level of involvement and motivation expressing their satisfaction with the educational strategy applied. These results along with the quality of the project carried out by the students and the good academic outcomes suggest that the present experience could be an inspiring starting point for anyone interested in looking for new methodological strategies to fit the current educational demands.