TY - JOUR
T1 - Learning to collaborate from diverse interactions in project-based sustainability courses
AU - Konrad, Theres
AU - Wiek, Arnim
AU - Barth, Matthias
N1 - Funding Information:
This learning was supported by regular exchange among student groups. This means that not only the teamwork setting allows for interpersonal competence development, but the exchange among peers about their group work, too. Such exchanges took place in all three courses. The GSR and tdCS course had several groups working on one umbrella project, while the ARW course had different individual student projects. Students went through the same cycles of planning, acting, and reflecting, which constituted shared experiences and the basis for reflection and exchange.
Funding Information:
This research was funded by Volkswagen Foundation and Nieders?chsische Ministerium f?r Wissenschaft und Kultur, grant number A115235.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2021/9
Y1 - 2021/9
N2 - Project-based sustainability courses require and facilitate diverse interactions among stu-dents, instructors, stakeholders, and mentors. Most project-based courses take an instrumental approach to these interactions, so that they support the overall project deliverables. However, as courses primarily intend to build students’ key competencies in sustainability, including the competence to collaborate in teams and with stakeholders, there are opportunities to utilize these interactions more directly to build students’ interpersonal competence. This study offers insights from project-based sustainability courses at universities in Germany, the U.S., Switzerland, and Spain to empirically explore such opportunities. We investigate how students develop interpersonal competence by learning from (rather than through) their interactions with peers, instructors, stakeholders, and mentors. The findings can be used by course instructors, curriculum designers, and program administrators to more deliberately use the interactions with peers, instructors, stakeholders, and mentors in project-based sustainability courses for developing students’ competence to successfully collaborate in teams and with stakeholders.
AB - Project-based sustainability courses require and facilitate diverse interactions among stu-dents, instructors, stakeholders, and mentors. Most project-based courses take an instrumental approach to these interactions, so that they support the overall project deliverables. However, as courses primarily intend to build students’ key competencies in sustainability, including the competence to collaborate in teams and with stakeholders, there are opportunities to utilize these interactions more directly to build students’ interpersonal competence. This study offers insights from project-based sustainability courses at universities in Germany, the U.S., Switzerland, and Spain to empirically explore such opportunities. We investigate how students develop interpersonal competence by learning from (rather than through) their interactions with peers, instructors, stakeholders, and mentors. The findings can be used by course instructors, curriculum designers, and program administrators to more deliberately use the interactions with peers, instructors, stakeholders, and mentors in project-based sustainability courses for developing students’ competence to successfully collaborate in teams and with stakeholders.
KW - Interactions
KW - Interpersonal/collaborative competence
KW - Key competencies in sustainability
KW - Project-based learning
KW - Sustainability courses
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85114369576&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85114369576&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/su13179884
DO - 10.3390/su13179884
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85114369576
SN - 2071-1050
VL - 13
JO - Sustainability (Switzerland)
JF - Sustainability (Switzerland)
IS - 17
M1 - 9884
ER -