Possibilities of Survival Skills Improvement in Higher Education
Előadó: Zsófia Balló, Ákos Barta
Szerző bemutatkozása:
- Dr. Zsófia Balló PhD: associate professor, Szt. István University, Ybl Miklós Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Head of Construction School. Economist in Management and Leadership. Working at Unilever Hungary Ltd. between 1997-2005. Teaching experience since 2002.
- Ákos Barta: visiting lecturer, Szt. István University, Ybl Miklós Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Economist in Management and Leadership
Előadás absztrakt:
In Hungarian higher education, vast majority of classes are hold still in the classical way: the instructor stands on the podium, tells the material, writes on the board, projects the presentation.
Besides increasing professional knowledge of the students, our lessons should also develop their competencies which are crucial to become successful in workplace and are highly important to live a contended life. Such survival skills are communication, cooperation, flexibility, initiative and entrepreneurship, creative thinking, ability to work independiently, critical thinking, ability to work with unknown people (for example at project work), etc. These competencies can be developed with success also at lessons in higher education with cooperative tasks. Good atmosphere of the classroom enhances the process as students become more receptive to the material and to the ideas of each other.
The aim of our study is to collect recommendations which can be used in practice as university lecturers. Literature of cooperative learning mainly deals with examples at primary schools where kids learn together for years with the same teachers. In this case teachers have the opportunity to set up the whole process of cooperative learning methodology whereas the situation at higher education is totally different. Many times we only meet students for a 13 weeks long course and due to Bologna-system they are often strangers for each other. Despite these obstacles we found solutions which enabled the use of cooperative learning methods to improve both professional and interpersonal competencies and skills of our students and managed to create good atmosphere (open, tolerant, respectful, motivated) in our classrooms. Thus interest in the subject and creativity of students increased.
