Abstract:

The GENIUS Project uses active learning methodologies to increase the level of soft competences/skills in higher education students. Soft skills are catalogued in learning and innovation skills, digital literacy skills and career and life skills. The ones that this particular project pretends to develop are some of the most commonly referred to in the literature as relevant to higher education students. They are the ability to work in multicultural and interdisciplinary teams, the capacity to communicate to different audiences, critical thinking, creativity and entrepreneurship. They are relevant to students because they are the ones referred to as needed for their future employment, as stated in “The Future of Jobs Report 2018”, from the World Economic Forum.

Therefore, with this specific purpose in mind, five different higher education institutions, University of Lodz (Poland), Artesis-Plantijn University College Antwerp (Belgium), Centria University of Applied Sciences (Finland), Dundalk Institute of Technology (Ireland) and ISPGAYA Polytechnic Superior Institute (Portugal) were awarded a grant, under KA203 Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership, to implement such methodology. The project, that started in November 2017, comprises a set of different activities. Students involved have virtual workshops to be prepared for the work they have to develop in each of the three different short-term mobilities. In these mobilities, the objective is for students to work in multicultural and interdisciplinary groups, properly accompanied by professors/mentors from those same institutions, that also possess different areas of expertise. Students are challenged to develop contextual games, for a specific theme, that is related to an external institution. With this methodology, we expect them to develop the soft competencies referred to at the start, while developing their own technical skills in the area there are studying.

In the present article, with the project halfway through, we make a detailed description of it, present its main objectives, the methodology used to implement it and to monitor it, the tools used to assess it and present the expected outcomes from it.

Keywords:

Serious Games, Soft Competences, Active Learning.