Collaboration, interdisciplinarity and internationalisation in the construction of meaningful learnings

The experience of the Critical Economic Thought Workshop

Abstract

This paper claims the important rol that the collaborative methodologies play in the process of constructing meaningful learnings. This is shown in the model of “Critical Study Workshop”, disigned and developed from the University of Zaragoza as Critical Economic Thought Workshop, in such a way that its interdisciplinary and international demensions stress the collaboration as well as the significativity of the reached learnings. The description of the experience and the presentations of its results —as they have been obteined through valoration surveys to the participating students in successives editions— explain that this collaborative methodology, strengthened by the motivation that interdisciplinarity and an international context offer, serves to achieve not only good learning results but also significant learnings: the degree of comprehension and reflection on the socioeconomic problems addressed increases, as well as the interest and the engagement of the students with their study. Besides, the method enhances not only the cognitive significance of the learnings but also the critical significance, that affects the way that the student places himself/herself by reference to his/her social context, and the lived significance, that links what has been learned with the student’s concerns.