New Experimental Teaching Proposal to Evaluate Foreign Students in Technical Subjects

Abstract

With the implementation of the European Higher Education Area (Bologna Plan), there is a desire to equate the university degrees of the different countries involved in the project. This fact, in addition to having important repercussions from the point of view of professional opportunities once the degree is finished, facilitates the exchange of students between European countries (Erasmus scholarships among others). In this way, as there is a clear tendency to unify and equalize degrees, problems to validate subjects between universities tend to be fewer. However, there are some subjects, typical of degrees with a significant regulatory dependency (such as Law, Architecture or Engineering), in which it is very difficult to establish interrelationships between what is taught in two different countries. Thus, this work shows the results of a pilot experience developed at the Higher Technical Building School of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (Spain). In it, a differentiated evaluation methodology was proposed for foreign students who were studying some of the subjects of the discipline of “Construction Materials” of the “Degree in Building” of the institution. The explained proposal consisted in the development of a supervised course work in which students had to analyze and compare the regulations and differentiating aspects of both: the destination country (Spain) and their countries of origin, in relation to some of the materials studied during the subject. In this way, it was possible to give a solution to one of the great problems that these students encountered when they returned to their countries: the total ignorance of the regulations of their territories (having studied those of Spain, which, in most of the cases, they will never need in their professional life). The results show a wide degree of satisfaction by the students, as well as for the professors involved in the experience. It has been a very interesting activity that shows us peculiarities and aspects of other countries, and that some of them, perhaps in the future, could be considered to update Spanish standards.