Introduction of team self-regulation for teamwork promotion. A case study in energy engineering topics

Abstract

The learning and development of teamwork skill is only possible if its achievement is a self-building process of the student. In turn, the teachers must become guides in the process of a learning which is not limited only to the topic of their own course, but which must be imbedded with a good dose of this skill. Promotion of teamwork is not spontaneous but very ofen requires the use of self-regulation within teams. The aim of the paper is to elucidate if positive or negative self-regulation of teams are useful to promote teamwork. The paper presents some experiences on the use of self-regulation of teams within active teaching strategies that involve teamwork as a critical skill in engineering education. The paper presents first the fundamentals of the learning strategy adopted, intended to develop teamwork abilities in the students. It then describes the context and challenges faced up in the case studies, as well as the essentials of the learning activities proposed. Finally, the paper discusses the student's achievement and perception. Although some infuence of unbalanced teams there exists, it can be stated that positive self-regulation of teams is more easily accepted by teams than the negative ones, because of the infuence on interpersonal relationships amongst students. The topics involved in this experience are energy related topics such as electrical installations, heat transfer, engineering thermodynamics or theory of circuits.