Resumen de Developing teamwork skills in first and second year engineering students
Jorge Maturana, Gonzalo Tampier, Guillaume Serandour, Richard Luco
This paper reports and analyzes a multidisciplinary experience carried out with Informatics and Naval engineering students. Mixedteams were formed to build a self-balancing ship model, mixing naval building techniques and microcontroller programming. Theobjective was threefold: 1) to develop multidisciplinary skills, 2) to introduce students to professional-style projects and 3) tointegrate knowledge from core courses. In order to develop a wider awareness about how they are seen in their environment, an automated peer assessment system focused in feedback was applied. A hundred students of both disciplines took part in thisactivity over 6 weeks. The activity was generally well received by students. Mutual dependence from peer’s work raised awarenessabout the importance of responsibility, while leadership was perceived through a different perspective. Skills such as conflictresolution, planning and enthusiasm were identified as key issues to boost teamwork. In conclusion, the professional-likeenvironment allowed students to see how their future activity will be, while access to technology and industrial environments wereimportant drivers to motivate them. Improvement opportunities are identified and are being addressed for similar activities in thefuture.
