CAPE tools in biotechnology: why, when, what, who, which ones and where?

Abstract An educational model is currently under implementation in the School of Chemical Engineering (ETSEQ) at the University Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona, Spain) to enable Biotechnology students to integrate, technical knowledge encompassing social skills (teamwork, cooperation, planning, decision making, problem-solving abilities, communication skills…). This model is based on the deployment of a project-based cooperative learning approach across the Biotechnology curriculum (1 st , 2 nd and 3 rd courses). The approach in Biotechnology has to balance the different (and, in some cases, opposite) interests of the Schools/Faculties/Departments involved in teaching, and the application is limited to those subjects where the responsible do follow this new teaching methodologies. In all courses classical teaching, experimental and virtual laboratories and CAPE tools had to be coordinated to solve an open-ended project ( i. e. with many valid approaches and different proper solutions). As the project slogan says, ‘ Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment ’. A similar model has been successfully implemented for more than a decade in the Chemical Engineering curriculum.