Perspective Chapter: Active Learning Strategies in the Veterinary Medicine Programme under the Think4Jobs Project

Abstract

Active learning has been introduced in the Universities to reinforce the students’ skills development and increase their motivation and engagement while also fostering the transferability of knowledge into the profession, contrasting with a classical approach, where passive knowledge transfer occurs, and students act as sponges for information. Albeit not completely conceptualized, active learning demands the student’s involvement with the learning activities, the analysis and ability to respond to specific situations, and a critical reflection on the learning process. In Health Sciences, case-based and cooperative learning are among the most used active learning strategies. They present multiple configurations and vary greatly in terms of implementation. Students’ adherence to active learning depends on the perceived utility, level of effort requested by the activities, and self-confidence in the quality of achieved learning. Under the Think4Jobs, an Erasmus+ project, a University-Business collaboration was implemented to design work-based activities for pilot courses of the Veterinary Medicine program aiming to increase the students’ adherence to active learning strategies while reducing any mismatch in students’ competencies at graduation. In this chapter, we propose discussing how the collaboration was conceptualized and implemented. We also present some activities jointly designed to foster students’ clinical reasoning/critical thinking and decision-making.