Expert in Teams Course Demands Work on Real Problems

This paper presents an analysis and a discussion of the didactics of an Expert in Teams course offered at the University of Southern Denmark. In this course, engineering students shall develop their cooperation skills by participating in group work and by studying 1) idea generation/innovation, 2) developing collaboration and 3) development and refinement of a business plan. This study identifies that students often have to “unlearn” attitudes from their earlier studies. This shift in focus seems to generate some resistance to learning and can, to some extent, be demotivational and may hamper transfer of learning from the Expert in Teams course to other settings. To improve students’ English skills, this study also finds that a need exists for more courses in English at earlier semesters.
Supported by literature of acquisition of learning on both the individual level and the group/organizational level, this study identifies that working on real problems forms a solid foundation on which to develop the essential engineering competencies of cooperation.