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Soft Skills in the Development of Team-Based Electronic Learning Portfolio

The top qualities of an effective engineer include not only technical competence but also soft skills which may be hard to acquire while already on the job. Fulfilling stakeholders’ demand, educators design the curriculum for engineering programs with the objectives of producing graduates capable...

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Main Authors:	Zainal Abidin, Azizan, Saleh, Fatimah
Format:	Article
Published:	Elsevier Ltd 2010
Subjects:	LB2300 Higher Education
Online Access:	http://eprints.utp.edu.my/4103/2/Science_Direct_ICMER2010.pdf http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/18770428 http://eprints.utp.edu.my/4103/
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id	my.utp.eprints.4103
record_format	eprints
spelling	my.utp.eprints.41032017-03-20T08:09:12Z Soft Skills in the Development of Team-Based Electronic Learning Portfolio Zainal Abidin, Azizan Saleh, Fatimah LB2300 Higher Education The top qualities of an effective engineer include not only technical competence but also soft skills which may be hard to acquire while already on the job. Fulfilling stakeholders’ demand, educators design the curriculum for engineering programs with the objectives of producing graduates capable in not only technical competence but also possess the equally important soft skills. This calls for a good variety of assessment techniques of student learning in order to ensure a more comprehensive measurement of performance. With the limitations of the traditional pen and paper assessment approach, the electronic learning portfolio is one alternative that is integrated in the assessment of Differential Equations course in Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia. Two hundred and forty two engineering undergraduates are involved in the study and are randomly grouped into fifty one teams to develop team-based electronic Differential Equations Learning Portfolio, acronym e-DELP. In the process of developing the portfolio electronically, each team strategizes collectively in conformance to the criteria explicitly transcribed on the course elearning portal. Objectively, e-DELP development creates a platform that provides participants the opportunity to exercise their soft skills while exploring the applications of Differential Equations in the real world and new skills in using Equation Editor and Power Point Presentation Skills. The participants’ major task is to design a learning portfolio, team-based and problem-based within 7 weeks of a fourteen-week semester. The deliverable is a four-component learning portfolio, comprising members’ demographic details, solutions to five modelling problems involving Ordinary Differential Equations, their evaluation of the course and delivery, and reflections of their learning experience; electronic-based and saved on a compact disc. A questionnaire is employed to measure the general attitude towards the integration of e-DELP, and individual interview sessions are conducted to further confirm the data obtained. The objective of this paper is to present some qualitative findings of the soft skills that participants acquire through the process of working on e-DELP, retrieved from the verbatim written comments in their evaluation and reflections, verbal and non-verbal feedback during the interviews. The results indicate that there is more to the learning than just skills in solving Ordinary Differential Equations which are of great value in the preparation of the future well-rounded engineers. Elsevier Ltd 2010 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf http://eprints.utp.edu.my/4103/2/Science_Direct_ICMER2010.pdf http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/18770428 Zainal Abidin, Azizan and Saleh, Fatimah (2010) Soft Skills in the Development of Team-Based Electronic Learning Portfolio. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences on Science Direct, 8 (8 (201). pp. 626-633. ISSN 1877-0428 http://eprints.utp.edu.my/4103/
institution	Universiti Teknologi Petronas
building	UTP Resource Centre
collection	Institutional Repository
continent	Asia
country	Malaysia
content_provider	Universiti Teknologi Petronas
content_source	UTP Institutional Repository
url_provider	http://eprints.utp.edu.my/
topic	LB2300 Higher Education
spellingShingle	LB2300 Higher Education Zainal Abidin, Azizan Saleh, Fatimah Soft Skills in the Development of Team-Based Electronic Learning Portfolio
description	The top qualities of an effective engineer include not only technical competence but also soft skills which may be hard to acquire while already on the job. Fulfilling stakeholders’ demand, educators design the curriculum for engineering programs with the objectives of producing graduates capable in not only technical competence but also possess the equally important soft skills. This calls for a good variety of assessment techniques of student learning in order to ensure a more comprehensive measurement of performance. With the limitations of the traditional pen and paper assessment approach, the electronic learning portfolio is one alternative that is integrated in the assessment of Differential Equations course in Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia. Two hundred and forty two engineering undergraduates are involved in the study and are randomly grouped into fifty one teams to develop team-based electronic Differential Equations Learning Portfolio, acronym e-DELP. In the process of developing the portfolio electronically, each team strategizes collectively in conformance to the criteria explicitly transcribed on the course elearning portal. Objectively, e-DELP development creates a platform that provides participants the opportunity to exercise their soft skills while exploring the applications of Differential Equations in the real world and new skills in using Equation Editor and Power Point Presentation Skills. The participants’ major task is to design a learning portfolio, team-based and problem-based within 7 weeks of a fourteen-week semester. The deliverable is a four-component learning portfolio, comprising members’ demographic details, solutions to five modelling problems involving Ordinary Differential Equations, their evaluation of the course and delivery, and reflections of their learning experience; electronic-based and saved on a compact disc. A questionnaire is employed to measure the general attitude towards the integration of e-DELP, and individual interview sessions are conducted to further confirm the data obtained. The objective of this paper is to present some qualitative findings of the soft skills that participants acquire through the process of working on e-DELP, retrieved from the verbatim written comments in their evaluation and reflections, verbal and non-verbal feedback during the interviews. The results indicate that there is more to the learning than just skills in solving Ordinary Differential Equations which are of great value in the preparation of the future well-rounded engineers.
format	Article
author	Zainal Abidin, Azizan Saleh, Fatimah
author_facet	Zainal Abidin, Azizan Saleh, Fatimah
author_sort	Zainal Abidin, Azizan
title	Soft Skills in the Development of Team-Based Electronic Learning Portfolio
title_short	Soft Skills in the Development of Team-Based Electronic Learning Portfolio
title_full	Soft Skills in the Development of Team-Based Electronic Learning Portfolio
title_fullStr	Soft Skills in the Development of Team-Based Electronic Learning Portfolio
title_full_unstemmed	Soft Skills in the Development of Team-Based Electronic Learning Portfolio
title_sort	soft skills in the development of team-based electronic learning portfolio
publisher	Elsevier Ltd
publishDate	2010
url	http://eprints.utp.edu.my/4103/2/Science_Direct_ICMER2010.pdf http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/18770428 http://eprints.utp.edu.my/4103/
_version_	1738655320129929216
score	13.211869

Soft Skills in the Development of Team-Based Electronic Learning Portfolio

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