Session Information
16 SES 10 B, Virtual Environments
Parallel Paper Session
Contribution
European Higher Education Area (EHEA) recommends a model-centered learning skills that include specific skills, related to their professional profile, and generic skills, that allow effective development in the workplace and facilitate learning throughout life. In recent years, the term “soft skills” has been used to refer the personal skills which have influence in how the people interact with each other, more specifically, interpersonal skills. They include communication skills, listening and negotiation, teamwork, leadership and planning. They receive this designation, as compared with the "hard skills" that are more related to technical skills and applied knowledge to develop the profession.
EHEA related changes have also found a new teaching-learning environment promoted by the development and use of ICTs. It is increasingly common for classroom teaching to lead the way to a context of blended learning (blended learning), or even with the use of the platforms (virtual campus) to a purely non-face context. UNESCO (1998) highlighted the role of ICT in the transformation and development of higher education as a way of providing new horizons for teaching, learning, assessment and research.
Although the use of virtual platforms has been prevalent for some specific skills development, it has not been applied to soft skills. This is because they require interpersonal face-to-face interaction between partners. However, they have successfully tested educational formats of role games aimed at students to encourage active learning (Nealy, 2005; Sancho, Fuentes & Fernández, 2007; Sancho, 2009) and involvement in formative evaluation procedures (Barbera, 2006, Rodriguez & Ibarra, 2011)
The review highlights the paucity of research and innovative experiences to guide learning, and the lack of assessment of interpersonal skills in the virtual learning environments. In most cases, the approaches to the teaching-learning process are based on the constructivist paradigm, while the assessment continues to focus on the positivist paradigm. The competency evaluation must be integrated into the learning process as a key component of that learning which takes place (Tobon, Rial, Carretero & Garcia, 2006), promoting active and responsible participation of students.
Consequently, we need a reformulation of the teaching methodologies and design the of continuous assessment during the teaching-learning process using the opportunities offered by ICT and, more specifically, the virtual learning environments and assessment beyond its use as a repository of materials, which is frequently employed by the university faculty. It seems necessary for the educational systems approach to enable the development of skills through an active learning environment, teamwork, and the use of ICTs. Therefore, the assessment of generic skills learning on environments blended learning is one of the challenges that the university’s education must face (García, 2011). The aim of this paper is to present the results on team work, communication, commitment, innovation and leadership competences from the Evalsoft Project, an integrated system applicable in Moodle, intended for the development and evaluation of interpersonal skills in college students through virtual learning and evaluation environments
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Barberá, E. (2006). Aportaciones de la Tecnología a la e-Evaluación. RED. Revista de Educación a Distancia. [Consulta: 2010, abril 25], Disponible en: [http:// http://www.um.es/ead/red/M6/barbera.pdf] García García (2010). Proyecto Evalsoft: Evaluación de Competencias Interpersonales en Entornos Virtuales de Aprendizaje. Programa de estudios y análisis para la mejora de la calidad de la enseñanza superior y de la actividad del profesorado universitario. Secretaria de estado de Universidades. Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Nealy, Ch. (2005). Integrating soft skills through active learning in the management classroom. Journal of College Teaching and Learning, Vol. 2, Nº 4, 1-6. Rodriguez, G. & Ibarra, M.S. (2011). E-evaluación orientada al e-aprendizaje estratégico en Educación Superior. Madrid: Narcea. Sancho Thomas, P., Fuentes Fernández, R. & Fernández-Manjón, B. (2007). NUCLEO an adaptive role game based learning scenario. Learning Technology IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Learning Technology. Sancho Thomas, P. (2009). Un Sistema para el Aprendizaje Virtual Colaborativo Escenificado a través de un Juego de Rol Multi-Jugador. Tesis Doctoral. Facultad de Informática. Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Tobón, S., Rial, A., Carretero, M. & García Fraile, J.A. (2006). Competencias, calidad y educación superior. Bogotá: Magisterio. UNESCO (1998). Declaración Mundial sobre la Educación Superior en el Siglo XXI: Visión y Acción. [Página Web en línea] Disponible: http://www.unesco.org/education/educprog/wche/declaration_spa.htm [Consulta: 2010, abril 11]
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