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was learnt and how it was learnt. The activity carried
out helped students to develop social and ethical
skills. During the activity students tried to work
together in a coordinated way in order to obtain a
final product with high quality level.
The analysis of students’ perception was made at
the end of the process and the results should be used
in future course editions. The questionnaires analysis
carried out on the MOODLE platform shows that
students were satisfied with the activity developed.
97% of the students classified it as very good and
3% classified it as good. Group members’
coordination was also considered as positive by the
students. Nevertheless, some groups referred that
there were some conflicts during the development of
the activity but that they were able to solve those
conflicts and reach a good result.
After public presentation (T 17), students were
asked to vote for the best database, corresponding to
a class project. This selection was done through the
use of MOODLE. Students were able to make their
decision supported on what they truly think. Their
final decision was aligned with the one of the
teachers.
3 LEARNING STRATEGIES AS A
WAY TO DEVELOP SOFT
SKILLS
The design of an online activity includes the
planning of a dynamic online interaction, an
essentially socio-constructivist view. The activity
described in this paper was seen as a way to develop
soft skills. Therefore, each one of the tasks referred
in Table 3 were planned to allow students to achieve
the soft skills referred in Table 2. In Table 4 soft
skills intended to be developed in each of the
activity tasks are presented.
Table 4: Soft Skills for each activity task.
Soft Skill Task number
Goal-directed management T1 T2, T3, T4,T5, T6, T7, T8,
T9, T10, T11, T12, T13, T14,
T15, T16, T17, T18
Team management and
leadership
T4, T5, T6, T7, T8, T9, T11,
T12, T13, T14
Written communication T16
Oral communication
T5, T17
Continuous improvement
and innovation
T5, T15
Critical thinking
T2, T3, T5, T15, T18
Conflict management and
emotional intelligence
T5, T6, T7, T8, T9, T11, T12,
T13, T14, T17
3.1 How do Tasks Develop Soft Skills
All the tasks were defined through the specification
of clear goals, which groups have to achieve in order
to conclude them. Therefore, all the tasks were
designed to develop “Goal-directed management”.
During tasks T4 to T9 and T11 to T14, students
must mainly work as a team in order to obtain
results. They also have to interact with other groups.
In order to accomplish the tasks, students had to
develop team management capabilities as well as to
define/accept clear leadership.
The need to develop a user’s guide in task T16
was aligned with the development of “written
communication” skills. The need to develop “oral
communication” skills. We consider that these two
skills were very important in this particular case,
because students are from a communication degree.
“Continuous improvement and innovation” were
presented specially in tasks T5 and T1 during which
students tested, discussed and tried to present
innovative solutions in order to distinguish from
others. This was supported by “critical thinking”
which is the basis for improvement and innovation.
“Critical thinking” was also presented in task T18,
when students had to choose the best database.
Tasks that involved interaction and agreements
between different groups were the ones that were
more suitable to develop “conflict management and
emotional intelligence”. This is the case of tasks T5
to T9, T11 to T14 and T17.
3.2 Was the Activity Effective?
The evaluation of the effectiveness of the activity in
developing the desired soft skills was done
informally.
Concerning “Goal-directed management” it can
be concluded that this soft skill was developed. This
is due to the fact that all the groups concluded the
eighteen tasks through the conclusion of the defined
tasks’ goals, thus being able to manage their work in
order to achieve specific goals.
As for “team management and leadership”, most
of the groups had some problems. Students refer to
some conflicts during the development of the
activities. This occurred in particular during tasks T6
to T9 and T11 to T15 where an interaction between
different groups was needed. At the end, students
managed the problems and worked as a team and
interacted with the other teams. Some of the students
came out as natural leaders.
Written and oral communication were a negative
surprise since students from a communication
DEVELOPING SOFT SKILLS IN A B-LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
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