APPLICATION OF EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CROSS-DISCIPLINARY COMPETENCE IN ETHICAL, ENVIRONMENTAL AND PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY

Usually it is difficult to include activities in technical subjects that will promote the general competence of “professional and social responsibility”, because in the academic environment we frequently prepare activities that will apply technical knowledge rather than “common sense”. However, experiential learning, involving the student in a “real case study”, can help them to interiorize that ethical knowledge in a practical way. In this paper, we use LEGO Serious Play® to develop an activity that builds on ethical, environmental and professional responsibility while, at the same time, enhancing participation and decision-making in groups. The experience has been developed for a Master’s course and it puts the students into a situation where they have to develop a product or service based on the the Internet of Things taking into account ethical implications such as local development, environmental impact and privacy protection. Preliminary results, conclusions and further recommendations based on the first application experience are discussed in the paper.