UNIVERSITY EDUCATION AT PRESENT TIMES: TEACHERS' PROFILES AND TEACHING COMPETENCIES REQUIRED

Getting started the European Higher Education Area (EHEA); it brings about the need to implement some changes in university teachers teaching procedures. This paper presents some findings of a research study aimed firstly to stimate the suitability and importance for teaching in the EHEA of some teacher's profiles; secondly we looked for the identification of core teaching competencies in that mentioned education context. In a previous research stage, 4 teachers' profiles and 87 main teaching competencies have been identified; now we present the assessment of 61 senior professors ('teaching experts' - members of 5 spanish universities) about that profiles and competencies then identified; their opinions have been obtained through an on-line questionnaire. Research findings show three more valued teachers profiles, laveled as "multifunction teacher", "teaching expert" and "research teacher". Among the more valueted teaching competencies we find the competerncies for planning, implement and evaluate students learning; tutoring studentes and menagement competencies, as well as in-service teachers trainingcompetencies have not got such a high assessment scores.