Methodology for training engineers teamwork skills

Besides scientific knowledge, society requires engineers with additional skills, such as teamwork or communication competences. The latter are difficult to train due to the sequential syllabus is content-driven and the lack of methodologies to provide meaningful teamwork experiences. This paper proposes an approach to lead engineering students through a teamwork experience based on real-life projects. Concurrent engineering theory is used to provide good practices for collaborative work. Weekly and final evaluation with peer review and professors’ evaluation is used to assess the learning process. It has been found that the students’ technical and non-technical skills have been satisfactorily developed. In addition, the latter has contributed to benefit students’ understanding and knowledge of the matter. Therefore, the present methodology could be considered a valid approach to complement students’ competences and could also be easily implemented in other engineering courses.