Teaching communication, interpersonal and decision-making skills in engineering courses supported by technology

Communication, interpersonal and decision-making skills are essential for engineering work and should be explicitly incorporated inengineering curricula. We have tested a constructivist, technology-supported collaborative strategy in engineering courses that is aimedat supporting the teaching of regular subject matter as well as fostering the development of students' communication and social skills.In this strategy, students communicate face-to-face through a social network while supporting their work with handhelds interconnectedthrough a wireless network. Information transfers from the social network to the handheld network and vice versa, meaning thatcollaborators maintain face-to-face interaction at all times while also being able to obtain and retrieve information. To implement thisstrategy, a technology tool named CollPad was created and applied in two computer science courses. The qualitative results of theexperience show that students found the tool effective in creating an environment that promotes communication, interpersonal anddecision-making skills.

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