Innovaciones en Educación en Ingeniería

Engineering schools all over the world are under internal and external tensions. On onehand, the industry demands professionals with knowledge in the disciplinary subjects, butalso with the so-called “soft skills” that can allow them to perform satisfactorily in the changingwork environments. On the other hand, there is a shortage in the number of professionalsthat may fulfill the growing needs of modern knowledge based societies. Finally, ahuge internal stressor is higher education’s resistance to change and innovate, hanging onto a traditional model that satisfies the needs of a world that doesn’t exist anymore.The only way to cope with these tensions, is to face up to recognize the need to changeand face an innovation process that allows the schools to fulfill current (and future) societaldemands. It is known that the pace of change in the culture of the organizations, andparticularly in academia, is very slow, but it is imperative to find a way to reduce thosetimes. To that end it is necessary to innovate on pedagogical, didactical, methodological,technological, normative, evaluative and organizational aspects in higher education. Issuessuch as Competence Based Education, Active Learning, Student Centered Learning,Competencies Assessment, Industry-University partnerships and other not less important,should become the center of the discussion as base to elaborate plans of action. In thisnetworking session, a space of discussion about these issues will be generated in order toshare visions, opinions and experiences for the collective enrichment of the participatingcolleagues.