Collaborative learning in engineering education: Reaching new quality and outcomes

Abstract

The article presents the research on the means to enhance collaborative learning practices, to reveal its potential for engineering students’ soft skills formation, as well as to trace the connection between purposeful organization of collaborative activity by a teacher and new level of learner’s participation in collaborative activity. The recommendations on the choice of the appropriate interaction model for teachers organizing collaborative learning are provided and the principles of open educational teaching activity with the space for sense-making and student initiatives are generated. The research approach based on phenomenological description of the precedent (class organized with the use of case-study method) allows to reveal and analyze the educational potential of the method used and its effect on the quality of collaborative learning.