Teaching, Education, Engineering, and Technological Literacy

Abstract

In 2010 James Trevelyan [1] argued on the basis of studies of the work that engineers do that the engineering curriculum required to pay more attention to the development of what have come to be known as "soft skills", as for example communication and the ability to perform effectively in teams. He noted that engineering courses that taught communication treated communication "only as information transfer" when what was required was a comprehensive development of social interaction skills. He thought that this could be achieved if students were given the opportunity to teach in their courses because "education, like engineering practice, relies on special kinds of social interactions reflecting the specialized knowledge that defines the context".