Abstract:

The acquisition of professional creativity and teamwork skills has been a special challenge for some of the subjects taught at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM). For this purpose, a number of professors decided to use cooperative classrooms for teaching subjects on engineering and master’s degrees. For that reason we decided to analyze students’ and professors’ perceptions of the acquisition of the two skills: the ability to function in multidisciplinary teams and creativity.

We have developed and implemented two questionnaires:
• In the first questionnaire professors evaluate the use of classrooms. This questionnaire contains, first, several open questions for qualitatively evaluating the use of classrooms and, afterwards, they are asked to assess their perception of the acquisition of skills (creativity and teamwork) quantitatively.
• The second questionnaire has also been filled in by students enrolled in the different subjects.

The questionnaire has 21 assertive questions that must be evaluated on a scale of 0-5, giving the choice of answering “Not know”. These questions were grouped initially in areas of assessment: outcomes learning, competencies results (team working and creativity), satisfaction and implementation. There are also three open questions related to the infrastructure of the classroom, installed software and teaching methodology used.

Based on the results of the questionnaire, we have performed an analysis of the experience and the results from the point of view of both professors and students.

The analysis based on the first questionnaire among professors has the added value to be the first result of the perception of a set of professors using cooperatives classrooms and a new methodology in order to promote the students’ acquisition of creativity and teamwork skills.

The results of surveys among the students (250 students belonging to six different subjects answered the survey) have been statistically analyzed using univariate and multivariate techniques. The results are provided globally or subject by subject. Finally a satisfaction indicator has been devised.

The main focus of the statistical analysis is on the questions related to creativity and the ability to function on multidisciplinary teams, both of which are explicitly included in the survey. Additionally the analysis allows us to identify and assess how students perceive the teaching/learning methodology implemented in the collaborative classroom, in order to improve their conceptual understanding and quantify the effect of features related to their satisfaction.

Keywords:

Creativity, team work, new methodology, public speaking.