In Catalonia (Spain), each university is required by law to offer lecturers a learning framework. This requirement is met by specialized centers: at our technical university, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) this center is the Institute for Education Sciences (ICE), to which the authors of this article belong. This institute offers training to both new and senior lecturers. This training is voluntary because no specific teacher training background is required for teaching at the university, other than knowledge of the subject to be taught. UPC only offers degrees in architecture, mathematics and engineering. We do not have schools and departments of psychology or education, or a tradition of social science methods among our faculty. Our lecturers do have the technical competences required for teaching, but not necessarily the professional competences required for good teaching practice. This is particularly problematic in university of engineering studies, which traditionally have one of the highest dropout rates in higher education. The opinions of lecturers on their own teaching depend on the students they have had, the subject they teach, their previous experience and the beliefs that guide their work. These beliefs are consistent with and depend on the teaching style of each lecturer, so they are fairly stable and resistant to change. It is difficult for a lecturer to Change her or his beliefs, particularly if they are intuitively reasonable. For such a change to occur, the lecturer has to feel somewhat dissatisfied. In addition, the lecturer must be offered an intelligible and apparently useful alternative; and finally, the lecturer has to find a way to connect these new beliefs with their previous ones. Lecturer training in Engineering has been studied in recent years. The studies focus on the methods and tools required for quality teaching practice. However, a paradigm shift in learning is taking place. In the European Higher Education Area we are moving from content-based to competence-based learning. We therefore believe that lecturer training should also be based on competences such as communication capability, and syllabus planning and management.

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