Abstract

Teamwork is one of the most widespread teaching methods used to achieve learning skills. Despite the difficulty of finding out the degree of individual learning taking place in each member of the group, these methods are having an increasingly greater importance in university teaching. The present article shows the results of an R+D+i1 project aimed at «analysing the impact of eRubrics ?electronic rubrics? on the assessment of university learning in various forms». Likewise, it aims to show the scope of eRubrics in improving cooperative skills, which are achieved through teamwork and cooperative assessment of tasks in the computer lab. The experiment takes place in three groups selected from a total of six groups of students from the First Year of Primary Education Teaching during the 2011-12 academic year. From the three groups, one acted as the control group and the other two as the experimental groups in which eRubrics were used. Differences were found in students’ results in a written test taken by all the groups, as the group using eRubrics achieved better results than the other two. Additionally, a qualitative analysis was conducted, by classifying the answers of students in the control group with regard to the evaluation criteria that they used, in order to check for coincidences with the eRubric criteria used by students in the experimental groups.

Abstract

This paper describes the concept development process of three vehicle design team projects carried out in successive years in our fourth year undergraduate studio course, in collaboration with industry. The problem areas for all three projects were unfamiliar to student teams, and our collaboration required close involvement of the firms, for their technical expertise and design feedback. Our framework and strategies for this process involved: user research conducted in the field; group discussions for analyzing the operations carried out by the users and mapping their relation to the functions of the related hardware; scenario building for describing the context within an activity based time-related process and searching for solutions at the same time; the generation of numerous ideas through the matching of alternative scenarios with the project dimensions; convergence of these ideas into alternative design proposals; and decision-making on the final project concepts. User research extended throughout the concept development process, supported with an intense 3D exploration and with class assignments that encouraged goal-oriented teamwork. Although we followed a similar design process in all three projects, the strategies used in the various stages were modified depending on the requirements of each project, and regarding the differences in the vehicle types involved, the users and the tasks. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.