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Home > Vol 3, No 2 (2013) > Amante García

INNOVATION IN TEACHING IN TIMES OF CRISIS

Beatriz Amante García1, María Martínez Martínez2 1Projectes d'Enginyeria, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 2Enginyeria Química, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya Barcelona/Spain beatriz.amante@upc.edu rosario.martinez@upc.edu

This volume sees us reaching the third anniversary of the publication of JOTSE and we would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who trusted our journal to disseminate their innovations and research in the field of education and technology. We would also like to thank those who have collaborated as article reviewers from the scientific committee, as well as the editorial group of Omnia Science that has been editing every volume of the journal very efficiently.

JOTSE was not created as a commercial venture but with the single purpose of disseminating, sharing and exchanging the innovative experiences of those academics involved in advancing the teaching of science and technology. However its publication on regular basis has been rather challenging due to the two following reasons:

Firstly, the financial crisis affecting Europe and in particular Spain, which began a few years ago and is still current (Arias 1994; Dolls 2012). As a result, gaining financial support for teaching innovation projects and to develop technology based teaching resources for the classroom is draining, as less money is being invested in education, university human resources and teaching quality due to the financial crisis the tertiary sector is experiencing.

The second reason is that there is not enough recognition within the university sector for those academics researching in the area of teaching in science and technology (Zych, 2011; Delgado, 2012). In a current university environment that seems to only value discipline based research, And as a consequence, the career development of those involved in researching learning and teaching science and technology in the university sector are disadvantaged. This unfortunately results in academics having to focus their research time and energy mainly in discipline related research to succeed as academics becoming detrimental for the advancement of teaching research that could lead to the improvement of learning and teaching quality.

Overall, we feel that research into teaching science and technology in our worldwide is at a crossroad, due to the undesired and unexpected combination of factors mentioned before. This is why we will like to dedicate this number to all the enthusiastic teaching academics, who besides the entire disadvantage that teaching research is creating in their academic careers. They choose to place the interest of their students before theirs and, as a result, they continue investing in innovating in their classrooms to facilitate the meaningful, active and engaging learning experiences of their learners. They choose to research the impact that the use of active teaching methodologies in the classrooms may have on learners, because at the end of the day finding the best ways to help students to learn new knowledge and acquire the relevant professionals skills, is as important as advancing the knowledge that they need to learn to become competent professionals in the areas of science and technology.

Finally we want to thank all the reviewers who have participated in some review during 2013:

Antonio Arauzo-Azofra - Universidad de Córdoba
Dr. Evaristo Ballesteros Tribaldo - Universidad de Jaén
Dra. María Graciela Benzal - Universidad de Tucuman (Argentina)
Muriel Botey - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, BarcelonaTech
Dra. Elena Cano García – Universitat de Barcelona
Dra Carme Carrion i Ribas - Universitat de Girona
Dr. Adolfo Cobo - Universidad de Cantabria
Dr Josep Duran - Universitat de Girona
Dra. M. Rosa Estela Carbonell - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, BarcelonaTech
Dr. Jaume Fagregat - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, BarcelonaTech
Dr. Oscar Farrerons - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, BarcelonaTech
Dra. María José García San Pedro - Universidad Internacional de la Rioja
Antoni Isalgue - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, BarcelonaTech
Dra Noelia Olmedo - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, BarcelonaTech
Hector Ortiz - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, BarcelonaTech
Dra. Rosa Pàmies-Vilà - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, BarcelonaTech
Antoni Perez Poch - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, BarcelonaTech
Dr. Christian Ripoll - ESIEE-Paris.
Dra Rebeca Soler Costa - Universidad de Zaragoza
Dr Ramon Vilanova Arbos – Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

We hope that JOTSE readers enjoy the contents of the present issue.

References

Arias, X.C. (1994). Political and economic interactions in economic policy reform. Revista de Economía Aplicada, 6(2), 215-220.

Delgado López-Cózar, E. (2012). La evaluación de la actividad investigadora del profesorado de Ciencias Eonómicas, Sociales y Jurídicas: criterios, indicadores y herramientas. Sesión ECONOMÍA Y EMPRESA. EC3 - Cursos. http://hdl.handle.net/10481/21577

Dolls, M., Fuest, C., & Peichl, A. (2012). Automatic stabilizers and economic crisis: US vs. Europe. Journal of Public Economics, 96(3-4), 279-294. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2011.11.001

Zych, I. (2011). Comparación de los criterios para la acreditación de profesores contratados y funcionarios. Aula abierta, 39(3), 51-62.

Citation: Amante García, B., & Martínez Martínez, M. (2013). Innovation in teaching in times of crisis. Journal of Technology and Science Education (JOTSE), 3(2), 57-58. http://dx.doi.org/10.3926/jotse.77 On-line ISSN: 2013-6374 – Print ISSN: 2014-5349 – DL: B-2000-2012

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