Skill development in experimental courses

Abstract

Experimental courses ofer a good opportunity to work with competences, promotng the incorporaton of strategies oriented towards motvatng students to actvely involve in the learning process, promotng refexive learning and developing generic skills. This study presents diferent ways of developing and evaluatng some important general skills, setle on four specifc objectves: • to increase student motvaton using samples of potental interest to students and explaining real-live applicaton of their samples analyses; • to assist students' self-regulaton and learning autonomy by using the portolio; • to promote group work through experiments in pairs and small-group discussions; • to develop communicaton skills through small-group discussions and oral presentatons. Results show that the type of sample used and real-life applicaton has important infuence on motvaton. The portolio is a good tool to promote refecton and to evaluate both specifc and generic skills in experimental courses, the dynamics of a laboratory course permit students to develop their group-work and communicatve skills, and peer evaluatons both improve students' communicaton skills and promote metacognitve refecton. Finally, the project demonstrates that it is possible to train students in general skills using the specifc course content and that the incorporaton of partcipatory methodologies encourages students to become actvely involved in the teaching-learning process.