Abstract
From several years ago Spain takes part in the Bologna process in which students can choose from a wide range of courses and benefit from smooth recognition procedures. Within this process there has seen an explosion of interest among college faculty in the teaching methods variously grouped under the terms 'active learning' and 'cooperative learning'. However, there is a underlying question about if techniques of active and cooperative learning are genuine alternatives to professors' lectures. In some cases the teaching activities are really innovative techniques but in other cases they are used as a supplement rather than a replacement of lectures. Many teachers and professors defend the continuity of lecturing, because many of them still lecture about half of the class period. The lecture is a very efficient way to present information but use of the lecture as the only mode of instruction presents problems for both the instructor and the students. In this work we provide a survey of a wide variety of active learning techniques that are used in several undergraduate courses at different Spanish college faculties. Several activities are shown in order to analyze and compare conventional lecturing and active learning.
