The extracurricular groups in Agricultural Engineering at the University of Caldas (Colombia): 1970-2006; from political effervescence to scientific training

Abstract

Taking into consideration that training professionals is a complex matter that overcomes the goals consigned in the syllabus, the students have complemented their training by means of Extracurricular Groups (EG). To comply with this dynamics, a characterization of these groups in the program of Agricultural Engineering at the University of Caldas from 1970 to 2006 was carried out. It aimed at finding out how these groups contributed to the students' training and how they provided the syllabi with positive feedback. The first part of this paper examines the EG's as "learning communitiesâ€; the second part, characterizes the groups in the program of Agricultural Engineering in three periods: the political effervescence in the1970's, the reflux of the 80's and the emergence of research seedbeds after the 90's. Finally, some lessons that had been learned during this research exercise and that highlight and reaffirm the importance of research training are presented.

Keywords: learning communities, students' movements, professional training, Agricultural Engineering, University of Caldas, university, learning.