Development of project management skills through collaborative learning

Background: The engineering students are expected to develop and hone a continuously expanding set of technical and non-technical skills. These include team working, communication, negotiation, project management, problem solving and other skills. Engineering programmes use variety of traditional and non-traditional learning methodologies to encourage the development of the necessary skills. These include project based, active and peer assisted learning. Purpose: This research is aimed at assessing the effectiveness of using collaborative learning between semester 1 and 4 engineering students. By acting as Project Managers, the Semester 4 students are expected to develop real life project management skills while the semester 1 students are benefiting from the experience and mentorship of the more senior students. Design/Method: To assess the effectiveness of the use of collaborative learning, two surveys are designed and administered to both the semester 1 and 4 students respectively. Results: The results show that both group of students found the experience to be enjoyable and useful. Both groups of students have interest in the success of the project and this created a dynamic learning environment. Conclusions: Collaborative learning can be a powerful learning tool that benefits all the collaborating students. When the design of the collaborative activity encompasses two or more modules, communication and alignment between the coordinators is very important.