Educational Model

Since its creation in 1991 the EETAC has been a leader in Spain in the introduction of content. tools and strategies, present in all its bachelor programs, in accordance with the roles of an engineer in the modern technological society. Following similar lines, these innovations have been adopted by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology on its 'Engineering Criteria 2000'.

Examples of those innovations include the introduction in the first year of a course on 'Oral and Written Expression', limited use of tests and written examinations as tools for evaluation, the definition and assessment of the students' workload (which has led to the adoption of the European Credit Transfer System, or ECTS credits), the introduction of interdisciplinary lab courses and the use of english in lectures. Some professors have introduced in their courses Cooperative Learning, a strategy which is now spreading slowly. Cooperative Learning is used now in most of the courses. The School was also one of the first in Spain to have course intranets which form a basis of the Digital Campus.

A study carried out over in 2000 by the Spain's National Council of Universities on Engineering Bachelor programs throughout the country showed that the EETAC was currently comfortably first for academic achievement and low student dropout.

EETAC professors have been working in close collaboration with ICE http://www.upc.edu/ice/lice-de-la-upc (Institut de Ciències de l'Educació) in the development of a set of courses and materials to offer the academic staff training in new educational resources (portfolio, project and problem based learning, cooperative learning, mentoring and others). As a result of this many EETAC professors have attended courses to improve their teaching abilities, and some have even become ICE instructors.