Title :
Work in progress - benefits of cooperative learning in a multidisciplinary course
Author :
Álvarez, Carlos ; López, David ; Jiménez-González, Daniel ; Alonso, Javier
Author_Institution :
Tech. Univ. of Catalonia, Barcelona
Abstract :
The implementation of multidisciplinary courses presents both a challenging task and a powerful tool due to the studentspsila different knowledge areaspsila contributions. In this paper we present the experience had during a technical course where students from different programs had to cooperate to develop both technical and professional skills. The basis of our proposal was to make students work in pairs formed by students from different programs. They had to use cooperative work and peer-to-peer learning that would allow them to cover the coursepsilas technical and non technical objectives. Our first results have shown that all students have achieved good learning results despite their different backgrounds.
Keywords :
computer science education; educational courses; professional aspects; cooperative learning; cooperative work; multidisciplinary course; peer-to-peer learning; professional skill; technical course; technical skill; Civil engineering; Collaborative work; Computer architecture; Computer science; Engineering students; Informatics; Open source software; Peer to peer computing; Proposals; Teamwork; Cooperative Learning; Multidisciplinary Teams; Open Source courses;
Conference_Titel :
Frontiers in Education Conference, 2008. FIE 2008. 38th Annual
Conference_Location :
Saratoga Springs, NY
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-1969-2
Electronic_ISBN :
0190-5848
DOI :
10.1109/FIE.2008.4720593