Download PDF Download PDF

SEFI 47th Annual Conference: Varietas delectat... Complexity is the new normality, Date: 2019/09/16 - 2019/09/20, Location: Budapest, Hungary

Publication date: 2019-10-30
Pages: 689 - 698
ISSN: 978-2-87352-018-2
Publisher: SEFI - European Society for Engineering Education; Brussels

SEFI 47th Annual Conference Proceedings

Author:

Leandro Cruz, Mariana
Carthy, Darren ; Craps, Sofie

Keywords:

curriculum elements, engineering education, communication skills, values, challenges, PREFER - 115966;info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/115966

Abstract:

accreditation commissions and institutions. For this reason, higher engineering education has developed practices and implemented in the engineering curricula elements that stimulate these competencies. However, educators find difficulties in developing and implementing them due to lack of time or experience, space in the degrees, or lack of institution support. This study describes a communication activity created and implemented over three engineering education institutions as part of a European knowledge alliance project and presents the values and challenges experienced by the universities after its implementation. Students carried out a short questionnaire at the end of the activity and the data from the three institutions were compared. The findings of this study showed that students perceived that this communication activity helped them to understand the importance of communication skills, and because of its nature of plug and play it was easily transferable to the three universities. This study provides educators with a new educational practice easy to implement and effective to stimulate student reflection on their communication skills.