Abstract
The materialization of the Bologna process has brought out the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation
System (ECTS) as a standard for comparing the study attainment and performance of students of higher
education across the European Union. Each ECTS is equivalent to 2530 hours of study and this study may
be carried out before, during and after each class. From this academic load just one third corresponds to
contact hours in engineering studies at the Technical University of Valencia. The authors have developed an
active methodology in Mathematics lab practice classes for Aerospace Engineering students that provide
activities to be developed by them before each lab session as part of their apprenticeship.
In this way the lab classes for Mathematics I in Aerospace Engineering degree have undergone many
methodological and assessment changes. The process of change that we have made is based on the following
guidelines: a) the student must work outside of class more time, and less in the classroom; b) the teacher
should synchronize with the theory, the activities that the students have to perform autonomously and
independently; c) the teacher should organize the assessment of such activities.
The methodological framework is based on the use of a learning platform, in our case, PoliformaT developed
at UPV based on the Sakai project. The course consists of 28 classroom sessions of laboratory practice which
are related to the contents of the Theory/Problems (TP) sessions. The authors have adapted the content and
sequencing of laboratory sessions in order to make the Bologna adaptation process as efficient as possible.
Lab classes are structured so that they are closely related to the contents of the TP sessions and concepts and
procedures learned in lab sessions cease from being simple calculus applications.
