The III Symposium on Teaching Innovation and Quality at DTIC/ESUP, organised by the Teaching Quality and Innovation Support Unit ESUP/DTIC and with the participation of almost thirty members of its teaching staff, teaching interns of the DTIC/ESUP and representatives of the CLIK UPF, took place 16 March 2016. The Symposium, as in its previous editions (see summary of the first edition of the symposium here and of the second edition here), aimed at providing a relaxed space and time in order to share teaching experiences, projects and initiatives amongst the attendees as well as an scene of group reflection in which exchange curiosities and points of view concerning teaching, innovation and quality.

The symposium was promoted by the UCA ESUP/DTIC deputy director and USQUID director Davinia Hernández-Leo and was composed of four sessions: "Quality in the Teaching and Innovation at ESUP/DTIC", "Actions and initiatives in courses/subjects: methodologies and resources to ease learning", "Tools for evaluation" and "Conclusions, discussion and group reflection". Various speakers took part in each of these sessions.

Session 1 "Quality in the Teaching and Innovation at ESUP/DTIC"

During the first session of the Symposium, Davinia Hernández-Leo and Verónica Moreno (USQUID ESUP/DTIC) presented, firstly, a summary of the most relevant studies and actions that have been carried out by the USQUID in the last months (studies on the 1st promotion of graduates in Biomedical engineering and on the 3rd promotion of TIC Graduates, HackLab actions –since January coordinated by the USQUID together with the responsible of promotion at ESUP-DTIC–) as well as other initiatives underway (projects in terms of genre perspective at ESUP/DTIC and the launch of the new USQUID-ESUP/DTIC website). In the second part of this session the results obtained in the study carried out during 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 on use of English in teaching at ESUP were presented, emphasizing on both the teaching staff's and the students' opinion.

Session 2 "Actions and initiatives in courses/subjects: methodologies and resources to ease learning"

The first presentation was carried out by the teacher Mireia Farrús who presented the dynamic of work that she follows in the optional subject Modeling social interaction 2.0. This dynamic has as main ideas the structure of "mini theses", which means, a strong work structure organised by phases, the motivation of students, it is them who chose the project's topic, and the tracking of the work groups to give feedback in the different phases of the work's development. The teacher's point of view is that this dynamic has a very positive effect on the implication of the working groups with the task and favours issues such as compromise, time management, research ability, presentation of the documentation/project, working in real-life environments, consciousness on the own's work, the non-directive following by the teaching staff (therefore authonomy and self management) and compromised evaluation, provided that this is not exclusively responsibility of the teacher but all the group takes part in the evaluation of the projects.

The second intervention was carried out by the teacher Àngel García-Cerdaña also in the name of the teacher Anna Carreras. They presented the motivation, incidence and valoration of the use of educational videos for the first course subject compulsory to all students of the Degree on Numeric Calculation and Methods. These videos (a total of 3) were presented as support material to a very specific topic which, historically, becomes difficult to the students provided that it presents the first mathematic method that the student sees (Newton Method). An analysis of the recordings and views of the videos was made and the possible impact on their learning, comparing the accesses of students with the practical notes on this topic, were analysed. As well, the students were asked about their point of view of the resource's use obtaining, in all cases, positive and interesting results to continue working in the improvement of self-learning resources.

Later, it was the teacher Vanesa Daza who presented her experience based on reports by the students in video format. The sintesis is that the assignments are submitted, instead of on paper or any other plain format, on video, used as a more interactive tool. Generally the teacher comments that she is satisfied with its use.

In the fourth place, the teacher of the Degree on Biomedical Engineering, Óscar Càmara, presented his experience on Medical Devices projects. This activity includes laboratory, visit to hospitals (including surgeries, etc.) and creation of real medical products using, for example, 3D printing. The students work in groups and develop a complete project concerning a specific biomedical device, from the study of the state of art until the matherialisation of it. The teachers says he is very satisfied with the results, the students have worked very much and very motivated. He mentions also that the success of the practice is due in a big part to the implication and general performance of the students as well as the fact of having been done in a third course subject. 

The last intervention of this first session was carried out by Narcís Parés who presented the dynamic based on debates in the master subject Interaction models. It is the student who choses the role for the debate and who prepares it by reading upon on it and preparing possible questions/answers depending on the role taken. As the subject is interesting, the debats are carried out concerning controversial topics, the methodology fits and gives good results, both at academic-learning level and at global satisfaction level.

Session 3 "Tools for evaluation"

The third session of the Symposium was dedicated to tools to systematize evaluation, specifically the resource of the signatures of Aula Global was presented (by Davinia Hernández-Leo), who highlighted its educational potential given that the student receives a detailed enough feedback of the evaluated elements as well as the relative facility of use by the teacher once the indicators and the evaluation criteria for the specific task/subject have been properly defined. Afterwards it was Vanesa Daza who presented her experience with the piazza tool, which becomes a kind of forum but with some elements optimized. Generally she shows satisfaction as a teacher although she also has detected elements for reflection such as the demanding level concerning the tracking of conversations and reviewing of questions/answers by the students.

Session 4 "Discussion and group reflection"

In the last part of the Symposium the UCA Deputy Director and USQUID Director moderated a debate about the next symposium as well as about other reflections and curiosities by the attendees. Basically we spoke about the importance of carrying out this type of event in order to aknowledge, share and debate about different practices that are carried out both at a School/Department general level and at a more micro level (specific subjects). This session was also profited to present the new aids programme PlaCLIK, by the Vice Chancellor of Quality and Strategic Projects, Miquel Oliver.