Abstract:

This work describes the implementation of multidisciplinary project, aimed at promoting collaborative learning of transversal competencies amongst undergraduate technical students.

Nowadays, students of the Polytechnic University of Valencia perform numerous practices, although they rarely get to participate in a multidisciplinary project similar to the real world situation. On the other hand, the subjects generally focused on the development and evaluation of specific skills, working poorly transversal competencies, so essential in today's professional environment.

This project aims, first, that the student is introduced in a collaborative learning activity, where he/she is forced to interact with peers of the same subject and other fields of study to achieve learning goals as a group.

The proposed learning activity is the project of an audio guide, where different degrees provide materials and perform interdependently some tasks for the overall project. The sum of the cooperative work of all disciplines will aim at presenting a project of audio guide, for Valencian tourist routes on architectural heritage, which is viable in today's market. The final stages of the project are used for the assessment of the degree of team work and oral communication transversal competencies, acquired by the participating students.

In this project, the degrees involved were Architecture, Audiovisual Communication, Engineering, Business Administration and Tourism.
This work describes and analyses the different phases of the project with the involvement of several disciplines´ subjects, together with the organization and planning that was undertaken by the teacher´s team in the various stages of this experience.

Following the analysis of the real experience that took place, we do a reflection on the difficulties, negative and positive aspects relating to activities, coordination and results of the experience. We also draw some conclusions that will be used in the preparation of a new and improved multidisciplinary collaborative learning activity for next year.

The conclusions indicate that multidisciplinary projects can be used as an effective strategy to promote collaborative learning of transversal competencies amongst undergraduate students from different technical disciplines.

Keywords:

Multidisciplinary, collaborative learning, coordination, team work, oral communication.