Explicitly teaching teamwork and written communication within a problem based curriculum: Development of a generalised framework

Recent years have seen the growing importance of employability skills for engineering graduate success. Beyond disciplinary specific capabilities, employers increasingly expect graduates to be proficient in skills that are transferable across employment contexts; specifically, “the ability to communicate, collaborate and operate effectively within an industry environment” (Deloitte Access Economics, 2014, p. 3). However, there are concerns that current undergraduate programs, both in Australia and internationally, are producing graduates without the requisite proficiency in employability skills to flourish in their profession. According to the European Commission (2015), “the successful development of [employability] skills requires an education system capable of preparing students through more active and problem-based learning approaches, using assignments from the ‘real world’ and including support for risk taking and creativity” (p. 4). Nonetheless, within a problem based curriculum, skills development must be explicit. In particular, teamwork skills are “not likely to emerge spontaneously” (Hughes and Jones, 2011, p. 60). Effective implementation of explicit skills development within a problem based learning environment (PBL) remains an open research question. This paper reports on the development of a generalised pedagogical framework for explicitly scaffolding written communication and teamwork skills within a PBL curriculum.