Pedagogy

Pre-Grads 2025-26
Teachers’ Session
Tuesday September 9, 2025, from 9.15 a.m. to 1.30 p.m.

This session represented a good opportunity to meet again before the classes began and share opinions and needs on key topics of our academic activity.

The objective of the session was to work and share reflections on two topics of general interest for the PDI:

1. Artificial Intelligence and Evaluative Systems
2. Elisava’s Workshops and Labs: organization and the role of the academic responsible

Programme of the day:

9.15 a.m. – 10.30 a.m.
Topic: AI impact on assessment
Ramon Reig-Bolaño, PhD, Assistant to Vice Rector of Academic Planning of UVic-UCC, talked about the changes that should be introduced in the assessment processes because of the widespread use of AI tools.
We also continued working on the document of self-assessment of AI use that was presented by Ariel Guersenzvaig, PhD.

10.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.
Topic: UVic-UCC Rubric and Training model design
Juan Arrausi shared the rubric model design with the faculty in charge of the subject, other types of rubrics to assess the students’ group projects, and the training model designed throughout the year along with UVic-UCC.

11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m. Coffee Pause

11.15 a.m. – 1.00 p.m.
Elisava’s Workshops and Labs Presentation
Session hosted by the Head of Elisava’s Workshops and Labs, who explained their organization and how they respond to the academic necessities.
The academic responsibles of workshops and labs also presented their spaces, explained the link with the faculty, and solved operative doubts.

1.00 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.
Guided visit to Elisava’s workshops and labs

Unit_1 AI use and regulation in the classroom.

Guest: Ramon Reig (UVic-UCC)
The generalization of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT, Copilot and similar tools, poses important challenges for university assessment.
Traditional methodologies become less effective when faced with tools that can generate texts and solve problems automatically. That makes us rethink assessment to ensure authenticity, critical reflection, and real learning.
We must promote assessment centred on progress, creativity, and the ability to argue. It is also recommended to incorporate oral exams, digital portfolios, and activities that integrate ethical AI use. In addition, it is essential to establish clear rules regarding its use and to ensure equal access.
AI can be an opportunity to customize learning and improve feedback, but the assessment criteria must be adapted to train students able to learn, think, and create in a complex digital environment.

Mentor: Ariel Guersenzvaig (Elisava)
The session was focused on the documents of “GAI use self-declaration” (aimed at students) and the “Traffic light” (aimed at the faculty). The first document was already presented at July’s session and, in this case, the introduced changes since then were presented.
The draft of the traffic light document was presented in detail as a tool to help the faculty make clear the degrees of GAI inclusion or exclusion in their subjects. We solved some doubts and received comments that were added to the document’s final version.
Similarly, trends related to the use of GAI in teaching were discussed, such as the lack of empirical evidence about its real benefits, the narrative of inevitability that accompanies its adoption, the ethical and social impacts linked to its development, and the risk of erosion of cognitive and creative skills.
We also discussed different GAI adoption options, which go from stances of partial or careful rejection to experimental and selective approaches, accompanied by critical teaching proposals for its responsible use in educative contexts.

Unit_2 UVic-UCC Rubric and Training model design.

Mentor: Juan Arrausi (Elisava)
On September 3 and 8, 2025, open sessions for the rubric design were held. Previously, on July 24, a training session on rubric design was held. (This session can be recovered on video, in FORMACIÓ team, on Teams). The faculty responsible of the subject could follow these sessions online, synchronously and asynchronously.
After these sessions, the faculty responsible of the subject had the opportunity to contrast the first versions of the rubric with Juan Arrausi for its validation.
On FORMACIÓ team on Teams, there is an archive that includes models of the rubric design in three languages, in addition to a rubric made in collaboration with UVic to assess individual contributions developed in teamwork. In this archive there are also 16 Value rubrics, of the AAC&O (Association of American Colleges and Universities).
Once the rubric is designed, it must be shared with the students at the beginning of the subject via Campus Virtual.

Unit_3 Elisava’s E-labs and Workshops. Presentation by the Labs Academic Responsibles and visit.

Mentor: Noel Díaz (Elisava)

1. Introduction: why are we here
2. What are the Workshops and Labs
3. How do they work
4. Link to faculty
5. Services, experimentation, research, and training
6. Our role in university

Presentation by the Labs Academic Responsibles:
– Carles Araguz: Interaction and Electronics Lab / MoCap
– David Aguinaga: Media Lab
– Judit Gonzalez: Science and Technology Lab
– Pau Llavador: Graphic Workshop / PrintLab
– Salva Fàbregas: Prototype Workshop / Fab Dig
– Ramón García: Space Workshop
– Ricardo Bonacho: Food Design Lab

Workshop for Elisava’s Teaching and Research Staff (PDI)
10/07/2025

“PRE-SUMMER” event

The aim is to bring together all teaching and research staff to share ideas and agree on methods and criteria for classroom teaching at Elisava; as well as the teacher-student relationship and the definition of its identity. The workshop maintains a cooperative, dynamic, fun, and participatory approach.
We have prepared a session for Elisava’s teaching staff to address three areas for improving teaching quality. The people in charge of each of these blocks will be Elisava’s leading figures: Juan Arrausi (Pedagogy), Ariel Guersenzvaig (AI), and Gastón Lisak (workshop design).

Thematic blocks

Although there are three different thematic blocks, they make sense as a whole and are linked so that the PDI can use them as tools to improve teaching-learning activities.

Unit-1: “May the rubric be with you” (Juan Arrausi)
Evaluate to learn and design rubrics.
We work with two activities: 1) highlight the situations that happen in the classroom regarding evaluation, and 2) how to design rubrics for a subject.

Unit-2: The AI Tsunami (Ariel Guersenzvaig)
Use and regulation of AI in the classroom.
Ariel will lead a remote activity on how to manage AI in the classroom and explore the parameters of ethical behavior in its use and application to submissions.

Unit-3: Am I Elisaver? (Gastón Lisak)
Define the student and professor of Elisava, present and future.
We want to define how the students and faculty of Elisava are and how we want them to be, nowadays and in the future. Defining elements of the identity of each of them.

Results

From Unit-1: standard rubrics with five dimensions and their respective descriptors have been generated. Multidisciplinary teams have worked using the puzzle technique, exchanging specialists between different teams and then bringing them back together in their base teams. The unit concludes with the sharing of examples of the base teams’ results.

From Unit-2: a remote conference was held to share the Declaration on the use of AI in academic and research work; as well as guidelines, a philosophy of use, and documents for applying AI in subjects. The unit ended with a verbal and shared brainstorming session to generate ideas for the sustainable management of AI in the classroom.

From Unit-3: an affinity map was created with areas of identity for a typical Elisava student and teacher. Working in teams, the caricature of the typical student and teacher was created using the collage technique with images and objects to give them a two- and three-dimensional configuration.

PRE-SUMMER 2025 for Elisava PDI

Activities Outline

Day: 10/07/2025 Classroom: 217-218

Hours Activity
4:00-4:15 p.m. Objectives and workshop dynamics presentation

4:15-5:00 p.m. Unit-1 (By: JJ Arrausi) Dramatized activity + rubric design

5:00-5:15 p.m. Break

5:20-6:00 p.m. Unit-2 (By: Ariel Guersenzvaig) Use and regulation of AI in the classroom.

6:00-6:50 p.m. Unit-3 (By: Gastón Lisak) Defining the student and professor of Elisava, present and future.

6:50-7:00 p.m. Sharing ideas and closure (By Cristina Taverner)

During the academic year 2023-24, training courses have been carried out, specifically for teachers, for the implementation of the SDGs in the subjects of the Undergraduate Degrees of the Faculty of Design and Engineering of Elisava. This training has been organized by the Center for Innovation and Training in Education (CIFE) and has covered all UVic-UCC campuses. The II University Teaching Day, held on June 26, has presented the experiences of application of learning after the training.

The faculty of Elisava has taken part in this II Day with a contribution of good practices presenting the activity developed by professors: Dr. Isabel Ordóñez, Dr. Ana Abella and Dr. Anna Maria del Corral in the subject Crossover Project, from the 3rd year of both Undergraduate Degrees: in Industrial Design Engineering and in Design and Innovation.

The exhibition of the Faculty of Elisava’s representatives has carried as title: Crossover Project: Integrating Sustainability Competences into Project Based Learning. In the following pictures some of the results of the application of the SDGs in this subject can be seen.

The II University Teaching Day also counted on a conference by the trainer, Dr. Mar Carrió, who highlighted the integration of SDGs in teaching. The baseline questions were: Why introduce ODS in our subjects? and, how can we do it? The developed themes: Conceptual frameworks to guide the teaching practice; learning and evaluating strategies; SDGs integration to the UVic-UCC initiative during the course 2023-24; and, lastly, an evaluation of the experience and future perspectives.

The contributions from the different campuses were as follows. By the Faculty of Health Sciences and Welfare: Integration of the SDGs to the subject of Bioethics with the methodology of film-education. By the Faculty of Science, Technology and Engineering: Drought as a reflection activity. By the Faculty of Business and Communication: The incorporation of the SDGs in the planning and development of events as a public relations tool. By the Faculty of Education, Translation, Sports and Psychology: The restless oracle, “criatives” answers to the problem of cell phones in the classroom. By UManresa: The Sustainable Development Goals in the End of Study Works (TFE) of the UManresa.

Elisava’s participation in the XII CIDUI Congress on Teaching Innovation (Lleida, July 4-6, 2023).

The International Congress on University Teaching and Innovation is a singular and significant reality, a space for collaboration between the universities of Catalonia, open to the rest of the Spanish and world universities. This new edition of the congress is entitled: “Improving learning experiences: transformation and challenges”.

The congress focuses attention on the need to seek strategies to promote quality environments that favor greater personalization and transversality of the training process.

On behalf of Elisava, the coordinator of the first year, Salva Fàbregas, and the pedagogical coordinator, Juan Arrausi, participated with the oral communication: “Moderate of the focus groups. Guidelines and creative dynamics for the monitoring of pedagogical quality”.

This oral communication is accompanied by an academic article on the design and deployment of the Focus Groups carried out in Elisava to monitor teaching quality. The new degrees in Design and Innovation and Engineering in Industrial Design are currently in their third year of development. Follow-up actions have been carried out to guarantee the quality of the teaching-learning processes with the participation of the students. The dynamics, methods and results have been shared with the university community within the framework of the pedagogical innovation processes of our faculty.

On October 27 and 28, the conference Jornades d’Aprenentatge Rebel took place, under the title: “Training challenges and adaptation to complexity in higher artistic education.” The Conferences have been organized by the Campus de les Arts (a project that brings together, since 2019, different universities and 19 faculties, including Elisava and higher artistic education centers that teach degrees and postgraduate degrees in the disciplines of fine arts, design, music, theater, dance, cinema and conservation and restoration) and the activity has taken place at the ESMUC facilities in Barcelona.

Elisava participated in the session on “Teaching methodologies and learning styles” with the presentation: “Shared teaching in the classroom 1+1=3”. Elisava professors Salva Fàbregas and Juan Arrausi have shared an experience of good practices developed for 3 years in the first year of the Undergraduate Degree in Design and Innovation:

+ Challenge: The joint use of drawing with photography and drawing with three-dimensional form to discover codes, media and materials to understand design. The approach is carried out from analysis, through the understanding of the main concepts to reach the generation of genuine proposals.

+ Processes: To the teaching-learning activities focused on the instrumental, we incorporate reflective processes that the students themselves monitor about how they learn, from whom, and how they apply it to the design process.

+ Problem: The participating teachers have specialist profiles in Design and Fine Arts, but they aim to achieve a profile of generalist and versatile students.

+ Pedagogical methods: Analysis of concepts and actions, self- and co-evaluation complemented by demonstrations to facilitate the processes of joint construction of shared knowledge. We incorporate some phases of approach to learning to make it unique, meaningful and lasting.

We have called the two learning experiences:

+ “Complementary learning”, since it is bidirectional, from drawing and from photography.

+ “Vice verse learning”, since it is a reciprocity, between the drawing and between the 3D form.

With these 2 types of learning we get students to face one of the most complex skills “learning to understand” for themselves. They face the achievement of this competence through the interaction of several agents: 2 teachers, the same student, the rest of the students in the class-group and the 2 complementary and vice-versarial learning methods.

The name of the talk is 1+1=3 because the students not only add unrelated learning, but also add understanding through shared action and reflection.

The experience of the Conference was very enriching for all attendees, since teaching practices from various artistic teaching environments were shared.