1000

In this course students will analyze what a learning environment is and apply this analysis to the description and comparison of learning environments throughout history (the ancient - eastern and western - World, the Middle Age, consolidation of customs in pedagogy, active school and the current situation of constructivism). Students will also analyze in a critical manner the learning environments in which they worked and work today and the results for each case. Based on these various analyses, they will develop and associate the concepts of pedagogical creation and practice.

In this course students will analyze what a learning environment is and will apply this analysis to the specific description of learning environments consistent with constructivism. Based on this analysis they will compare various constructions about the characteristics of a learning environment based on constructivist ideas and will justify one or some constructions through precise theoretical arguments. The course also addresses international and national learning standards in different disciplines and analyzes a given discipline from a pedagogical viewpoint. Students will choose one discipline among the ones they handle in their careers and will also apply what they learned to the critical analysis of learning environments in which they have participated and are participating today. They will also apply new knowledge to the design of pedagogical practices based in actual performances for their discipline, at the basic school or university level they have chosen.

This course is designed for students wishing to learn about the nature of sciences and their learning and teaching. The course is targeted to make participants create knowledge about the epistemology of sciences, question about how they and other learn sciences and connect these ideas to learning and teaching strategies of scientific concepts for primary school students. This learning should help them to develop their own competences in the field of science and technology and within the framework of their respective careers. The course also intends to provide students with the elements needed to conduct a critical analysis of their own learning/teaching processes.

This course is intended to provide students with conceptual, procedural and ethical tools to understand and analyze critically the relations between society and environment, from a holistic perspective in which the educational dimension plays a fundamental role. Along the course subject matters will be addressed from an interdisciplinary approach, encouraging students to foster socio-environmental consciousness and responsibility by looking for alternatives oriented towards the attainment of local and global sustainable development. In this regard, by the end of the course, students are expected to experiment on the different aspects of social organization and civil participation. As final activity, students shall investigate a problem and design a productive sustainable viable project focused to solve the problem and improve the standards of living of the communities involved.

This course provides students with the opportunity of thinking critically about some of the most relevant problems in the agenda of contemporary education both nationally and internationally. The question posed at the beginning will remain active during the course in order to discuss the background of various matters subject to discussion. The abovementioned question addresses the why an what of education. Along this line of thinking, professors and students will jointly revise three concrete education issues, currently put on the discussion table in our context: I) civil formation, ii) evaluation and quality of education, and iii) education and work.

We are born into a family, and soon after that, we are sent to places where we are expected to be educated. Kindergartens, schools, institutes of technology or universities, they all form a part of an enormous infrastructure that has been considered essential to human beings. The United Nations, for instance, has included certain elements of access to education in its indices that determine people’s quality of life. But why education? What do we expect from it? What role does it play in society? What is the meaning of it all? The answer to this question is social, ethical, political and fundamentally cultural. Different cultures have placed part of their hopes on education, but in totally different ways that reflect world views, ways of understanding and dealing with reality, that define them at a given time or period. This course explores the ways in which different periods and cultures have defined the meaning of education, with the ultimate purpose of being able to have a more in-depth, critical understanding of the meanings of education today, and the way we act in this regard. In order to carry out this study, we will focus on certain changes in periods in Eastern history, as the different educational proposals that reflect part of said change are clearer.