Do the learning strategies of university students improve by implementing innovative/learning centered methods of teaching and assessment? This is the research question that guides our work.

There are several studies which confirm, at the university, the survival of the traditional model, also known as the knowledge transmission model, teaching centered model, teacher centered model, but also the presence, in crescendo, of the student’s learning centered model also called theconstructivist model, student centered, learning paradigm) (Attard, Di Ioio, Geven &  Santa, 2010, Biggs, 2005; Kember, 2009; Monereo &  Pozo, 2003; Samuelowicz &  Bain, 2001).

This is the model advocated by the Bologna process of convergence, to which many European countries are committed for the purpose of getting higher quality training in our university students. The model presents as relevant elements the innovative teaching -using different methods propitiatory of active learning: cooperative work, problem-based learning, project teaching methods, teaching self-regulated learning, etc.- all of these. compatible with the expository method of quality (Zabalza, 2012)-, the use of a meaningful evaluation, raised as a learning opportunity, using different sources of data collection, which returns feedback to students (Hernández, 2012) and which gives them the opportunity to participate in the process -for example by choosing ways and products to show the acquired-learning-, and which also encourages the learning of the self-assessing process in the student (Hannafin, 2012), etc. (Attard & al., 2010).

Obviously the ideal would be to promote the student-centered approach throughout all the university, but most of the time the ideal does not happen in reality and you should be more modest. In this paper the impact of innovative/learning-centered methodologies, implemented by two professors at the Catholic University of Valencia who teach in elementary teacher education degrees, will be discussed.

Learning strategies of their students will be evaluated at the beginning of the teaching of the subject and at the end, in order to assess the impact of such methodologies. Learning strategies operationalize the ways of learning of the students and also their self-regulation capability (Pintrich, 2000, Zimmerman, 2002). These strategies involve conscious and intentional decision making processes about what to do and how to learn effectively in a given social context (Monereo & Badía, 2013), mobilizing the necessary skills and techniques for this, self-assessing and self-regulating own process of learning. They include affective-motivational and support elements, and also metacognitive and cognitive elements. These are the three components of the strategic model of Weinstein, Husman and Dierking (2000), "will", "self-regulation" and "skill", in which there is basic agreement among researchers (Yip, 2012).

If innovative and learning-centered methodology helps students to improve their learning strategies, as we think, we will be able to offer to other Spanish and European universities relevant data and training proposals of interest. To check this question we are collecting data from students in three universities of the city of Valencia (Spain) and we present results from a three-year research whose objectives obviously are broader[1].

Therefore, the objective of this work is to verify if the implementation of innovative/learning-centered methods, for university professors improve the learning strategies of students from the selected simple.

[1] It is the "Learning-centered methodologies at the university. Design, implementation and assessment”, approved by the Spanish Economy and Competitiveness’ Ministry into the National Basic Research Program, 2001 (2013-2015) (Financing Plan E, PGE), directed by Professor Ph.D. Bernardo Gargallo (code EDU2012-32725).

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