Plenary Lecture

Collaborative learning in the university education: from the theory to the practice

Prof. Jaime Lloret Mauri
Department of Communications,
Polytechnic University of Valencia
Camino de Vera 46022,
Valencia - Spain
E-mail: jlloret@dcom.upv.es

Abstract: Collaborative learning an educational strategies that should be incorpored in all plan of studies in the university careers. It is considered as one of the main learning strategies in the Bologna process. In collaborative practices students are divided in groups to do their activities and they are evaluated by their productivity. The fact of doing a common task in which each one of them depends on and is accountable to each other, prepare the students personal and socially for the enterprise environment. It is demonstrated that this educational strategy improves students' communication habilities, enhances the students responsability and shows them how they should organize for any enterprise. This talk will review some practical examples and several study cases, and how they have been set up in order to obtain the best result. Collaborative learning basic elements such as objetives, environment, motivation, kind of process, individual contribution and group process steps, will be discussed. Examples and cases reviewed will show their benefits and the students results given when it is used.

Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Jaime Lloret received his M.Sc. in Physics in 1997 at University of Valencia and he finished a postgraduate Master in Corporative networks and Systems Integration from the Department of Communications in 1999. Later, he received his M.Sc. in Electronic Engineering in 2003 at University of Valencia and his Ph.D. in telecommunication engineering (Dr. Ing.) at the Polytechnic University of Valencia in 2006. He is a Cisco Certified Network Professional Instructor of the regional academy "Universidad Politécnica de Valencia" in the Cisco Networking Academy Program (CNAP) and he is the Legal Main Contact of UPV-ADIF (local academy of the CNAP). He teaches at the "Escuela Politecnica Superior de Gandia" from the Polytechnic University of Valencia. He has been co-editor in several international conference proceedings, he is a editorial Board Member of several international journals and he has been a guest editor in several WSEAS journals. Dr. Lloret is a TPC member of WSEAS, IIS, IASTED, IARIA, and he has been involved in more than 20 IPCs of international conferences till 2007. He is the chairman of SENSORCOMM 2007 and Ubicomm 2008, both proceedings published by IEEE Computer Society Press. One of his main research interests are educational approaches and strategies.