Competence improvement programme for academic teachers - the Spanish experience

Abstract

This paper provides a detailed discussion of the Spanish concept of teaching competence programming for academic teachers and the implications of this concept. The programme in question emerged from the work on continuous training model for academic teachers in Andalusia, under the leadership of professor Luis Miguel Villar Angulo, conducted until 2002. The outputs of that effort included a course for academic teachers, taught in the academic year 2002/2003 (from 8 January to 2 April 2003) and a book entitled Programa para la Mejora de la Docencla Universitaria (Programme for quality improvement in university education) published in 2004 by Pearson Education. The book was published in a few countries in parallel, notably in Spanish speaking ones (it was released in Madrid, Mexico City, Santafe de Bogota, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Lima, Montevideo, San Juan, San Jose, Santiago, Sao Paulo, White Plains) and came with a CD-ROM containing key information on programme design and its theoretical underpinnings. Luis Miguel Villar Angulo is a professor at the University of Seville and specialises in didactics and organisation of schooling. He co-ordinated a team of 24 academic lecturers specialising in teacher training, representing eight Spanish universities and four fields (didactics and organisation of schooling, education studies methodology, social psychology, sociology).