(1836)TEACHING COMMUNICATION AND THE REAL SOCIAL PROJECT:COACHING AND MENTORING METHODS AS EDUCATIONALINNOVATION

摘要

The Real Social Project group started at the Faculty of Communication in Madrid, within theframework of the new teaching strategies at the Complutense University (UCM). A group of teachersbegan working with non governmental organizations (NGOS) in 1999. As communication consultantsfor said entities, they worked alongside students to achieve collective awareness of social issues whilelearning in a practical way. The group is currently recognized by the Rectors’ office of the UCM, withinthe teaching innovation projects.Over the past twelve years, the method has been improved in different ways. Our team starteddeveloping communication campaigns for several non profit organizations as an extra academicactivity for Advertising students, which allowed them to obtain the different skills that they would needin their professional future and the knowledge that would aid them in order to become responsiblemembers of tomorrows’ sustainable society. Little by little, the project became the core method oflecturing for the professors taking part in it. It was applied in many subjects within the area ofpersuasive communication, journalism and audiovisual communication. Nowadays, this project iscarried out in different European universities by several professors who use similar teaching methods.This way, the project has been globalized.In this paper we would like to present another, new aspect of the project: coaching and mentoring. Theproject trains the students not only in aspects of real working life, such as communication skills,programme design, applied research and media writing, but also in other skills that companies aregoing to demand of them in the near future but that the University normally doesn’t offer. Some ofthem are: teamwork, adaptation capabilities, fluency in foreign languages, public speaking and thetransmission of knowledge to junior workers. Through this methodology, the students are able toobtain skills that are out of reach when using traditional lecturing methods and which they are going toneed in their professional lives as much as the package of strictly technical skills and theoryframework issued by the university. Apart from the method, in this paper we would like to share someof our most recent experiences, applied during our work with NGOS and related to the subjects weteach.Our work outline is the following: the students start to work within the method during the first year oftheir studies;;after two years they will have had access to real experiences that will allow them toprepare for their future jobs. This part of the project is called coaching, and is based on lecturers andNGOS cooperating and sharing their knowledge with the students. Besides, during this part of theproject, the senior students who have taken active part in the project and designed severalinvestigations and research plans for NGOS are able to lead a mentoring programme for the studentswho are beginning. This way, there are students teaching other students at all times.The Real social project is useful for the acquisition of both types of skills: tangible or material andintangible or immaterial. After these innovative experiences, our students are equipped with new skillsand insights that can benefit both their studies and their knowledge, giving them a competitiveadvantage in tomorrows’ highly competitive work market.