The European Higher Educational Area (EHEA) is nowadays a fact in course at European Universities and a process that cause a lot of questions of different nature, such as the connection between universities and the labour market or the scope of changes in methodology and teaching culture. It is necessary that a teaching of quality introduce different components such as the skill to encourage the interest of the students as well as their implication in the learning process [1]. The “education in competencies” is then an important aspect that must be considered in a teaching perspective centred on the student [2,3]. It is necessary to train the student not only in the specific competencies of his degree but also in personal competencies that will help him for a better incorporation in society, since the aim of the University is not only to train good professionals but also good citizens. The University of Barcelona has defined a number of key competencies common to all degrees and they must be included in the whole training process of the student through all his University life [4]. We will focus in one of these competencies: “the critical and self-critical capacity”, since a critical and self-critical though is an indispensable tool for any professional and citizen. This work is included in an interdisciplinary action-research project that is trying to develop strategies, by means of the virtual platform Moodle, to promote students´ critical and self-critical capacity through a reflection of our own teaching practice. Three are the main objectives: to understand the diversity of educational scenes trough our teaching practice reflection, trying to promote the critical and self-critical capacity of students from different knowledge areas of the University of Barcelona; to design, to develop and to evaluate general teaching and learning strategies without losing the richness of the particularities of each knowledge area; and to create reflective and collaborative areas of University Professor Development within the same action-research process where we are participating. Two sets of student activities have been developed: - One group focused on the competences of a subject. We developed some critical and self-critical activities to be carried out at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the teaching process of a subject to see if the student understands the meaning of each subject competence, as well as if they are aware of acquiring these competences during the teaching process. - A second group of critical and self-critical activities to be applied after any other teaching activity, i.e. oral expositions, seminars, experimental works, etc., to help students to be critical about their own learning process. These activities will be also used as a valorative method to analyze if the teaching activities used in a subject are good enough or not to acquire the specific competences of the subject. This work will focus on the results obtained with students of the Food Science and Technology Degree of the University of Barcelona.

This research is developed in a collaborative research-action framework. From the reflection and analysis of our own educational practice we developed strategies to be implemented in the lecture room. These strategies followed a cyclic process of observation, reflection, planning and action. We understand that this action-research process not only implies action and research but also training [5]. Following the Lewin model [6], from the stages of planning, action, observation and a cyclic and collaborative reflection, we generated a real process of staff developement. The virtual platform “Moodle” is used as a support to develop the aim of the project. By using this platform students can perform the critical and self-critical activities proposed within the two sets previously commented without requiring an important amount of time and trying not to modify too much the general structure of the subject.

We expect that this research will give us tools about how to promote the critical and self-critical capacity of students. In this communication we will discuss the application of the two sets of activities developed in this project to the students of a specific subject in the Food Science and Technology Degree of University of Barcelona. The suitability of these activities was evaluated taking into account the answers of the students as well as their opinion about these activities (obtained from the same activities and from personal interviews with them). The learning process of the students and how they are acquiring the specific competences of a subject can also be discussed by evaluating the results obtained after the application of some of these critical and self-critical activities. 95% of the students considered that these activities helped them to promote their critical and self-critical thought, and they were thankful with their own implication in the learning process. The results obtained with these critical and self-critical activities were also helpful to professors because it allowed us to evaluate the suitability of a teaching activity or strategy to acquire specific competences in a subject, and if necessary modify them for future academic courses.