Industry-Inspired Experiential Learning and Assessment of Teamwork

In preparing students for work, final year students from the Infocomm Solutions specialisation of the Diploma in Multimedia and Infocomm Technology at Nanyang Polytechnic, Singapore, are not only trained to hone their technical skills in software development, but also on how to use those skills as described in the CDIO Syllabus (3.x.x) in a team-based environment.

This paper presents a series of industry-inspired experiential classroom activities that provide opportunities for students to work effectively in a team. These activities are designed to emulate the real-world industry environment. Accompanied by instructional scaffolding, they comprise guidelines on dealing with team-based communication, setting and expecting professional behaviour from teammates, to an assessment method that uses a set of criteria used by the industry.

Through these activities, students learn about interpersonal skills and leadership traits that are expected of them. Students also get to experience first-hand how the technical skills they have acquired such as software designing and collaboration tools can serve to augment more effective teamwork in software development. Finally, they are also given two in-class assessments, one in which they will work under pressure and observation, and the other where the entire class is guided by the instructor to complete a single large-scale project. Through self-assessments, peer assessments and feedback from the observation, they will be able to reflect on how well they and their classmates have done, giving them valuable insights to how well they can perform in a team.

This paper will share the feedback received from students and their perceptions on the usefulness of the different activities towards their learning. Reflections on the strengths, areas for improvements in the approach and the future course of action to enhance students’ learning at the polytechnic will also be shared.

Proceedings of the 12th International CDIO Conference, Turku, Finland, June 12-16 2016