Abstract:

As a result of globalisation and technological advances, the VICA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) environment is a reality in the workplace. Faced with such a panorama, being an adaptable professional, willing to accept challenges and changes, is the formula for success in the professions of the future. For this reason, it is common to find companies demanding professionals with a command of soft skills, also known as transversal competences, which are those that a person develops regardless of the professional field and can be thus the differentiating feature by which a student manages to attract attention in a selection process. Among them, communication skills are crucial for the professional practice and thus, in addition to the ability to speak in public, to convey knowledge and to express ideas, arguments or solutions clearly and convincingly, it is becoming increasingly common for companies to ask for good non-verbal communication as well. In short, to communicate effectively, using the necessary resources appropriately, adapting to the characteristics of the situation and the audience. Therefore, this work seeks the renewal of active methodologies with the aim of improving communication skills in the scientific and engineering fields of the Chemical Engineering Master’s students at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) in Spain, which will enable a better integration into the labour market. To this end, and guided by the teaching staff, different specific activities such as the creation of podcasts, flash-poster presentations, the elaboration of an Elevator Pitch, the Johari window or the participation in a debate league are being implemented in different subjects of the Master in a coordinated manner during the second semester of 2022. The development of these dynamic tools offers an active role to the students and contributes to improve different aspects of communication (written, graphic, verbal and non-verbal) as well as encouraging autonomous and cooperative work, the capacity for synthesis, critical thinking and the development of creative dissemination and teaching-learning content that can be used in successive academic years as a resource bank by the lecturer. Finally, it should be noted that the proposed methodology will be extended to other subjects of the Chemical Engineering degree and can be generalised to a large number of UCLM degrees, representing a new teaching methodology in accordance with the EHEA (European Higher Education Area) that allow the improvement of the teaching-learning processes.

Keywords:

Communication, Transversal Competences, Chemical Engineering.