CHALLENGE-BASED LEARNING DESIGN IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A NEW CONTEXT FOR LEARNING BEYOND COMPETENCY APPROACH

摘要

The Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia, UOC) has launched the PLA-Niu project and it is designed to be a methodological change in the conception of the subjects to be implemented in the entire range of training at the university. It aims to transform the subjects in the University's programmes into activities designed strictly based on competencies which are aimed at resolving challenges inspired by the professional sphere; to implement a new means of selecting, designing and managing learning resources based on content curation for learning. In the long term, the project affects the entire range of training at the UOC. A PLA activity is a compact form of training activity, which is defined based on a situation related to a challenge, is competence-based and designed around the activity to be carried out by the student. The acronym PLA stands for 'Performance Learning Activity'. In addition, Niu contents the training resources and content required to carry out the learning activity successfully organized in a visual aggregator. The implementation of the PLA-Niu project is based on four guiding elements, which ensure the quality of the process: the project is being driven by the Office of the Vice President for Teaching and Learning, studies of trends in higher education, incremental intervention and personalised and intensive support. According to the experience of this project, we explain in this paper the conclusions to improve the process in the next phases of work.