The communicating technologist: an educational challenge

The ability to work in groups and communicate effectively is essential for every science and engineering graduate. In Computing Curricula 1991, produced by a joint ACM/IEEE task force, the importance of communication and group work was recognized by suggesting that they should be incorporated into classroom lectures, laboratories and extracurricular activities. Although these skills can be taught in separate subject, this is not sufficient. It is important that group work and communication are integrated with core technical material. We present a different style of tutorial and report on experience with, and feedback on, introducing this style of tutorial in several Computer Science subjects. Based on feedback from students and teaching staff, we have developed guidelines and recommendations for such classes. We believe we have improved the quality of the Department´s small-group teaching and encouraged students to treat communication skills as valuable. Our results show that small-group teaching can be enhanced by including group work and presentation activities, but that care must be taken to achieve appropriate structure and content for such tutorials