The promotion and assessment of generic skills from interdisciplinary teaching teams

Abstract

The paper explains a teaching project financed by the University of Barcelona (UB). It focuses on a generic skill of the University of Barcelona, which is defined as "the learning capability and responsibility”, and in which analytical and synthesis skills are included. It follows a multidisciplinary approach including teachers of Mathematics, World Economics and Economic History. All of us share the same students during the first and the second course of the grade in Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Business. The project has been developed in three stages. The first one has been done during the first semester of the course 2012/13, being applied to first year students on the subjects of Mathematics and Economic History. The second phase is being to be done during the second semester only on the Economic History subject. A third stage is going to be done next course 2013/14 to second year students on the subject of World Economics. Each different teaching team has developed specific materials and assessment tools for each one of the subjects included in the project. The project emphasizes two teaching dimensions: the elaboration of teaching materials to promote the acquisition of generic skills from an interdisciplinary point of view, and the design of specific tools to assess such skills. The first results of the first phase of the project shows clear deficiencies in the analytical skill regarding to first year students.