New Perspectives in Science Education

Teamwork is the student outcome that means the ability to function on multidisciplinary teams. Teamwork is one of the most frequent ability involved in recent science and engineering courses. Team assignments should be structured to assure positive interdependence (that is, if anyone on the team does not fulfill his or her responsibilities, everyone is penalized in some manner), individual accountability for all the work done on the project, face-to-face interaction (at least part of the time), development and appropriate use of interpersonal skills, and regular self-assessment of team functioning. However, promotion of teamwork is not spontaneous but very often requires the use of self-regulation within teams. The aim of the paper is to elucidate if self-coordination and planning of teamwork is useful to promote teamwork. The paper shows a case study on the use of self-coordination of teams within active teaching strategies that involve teamwork as a critical skill. The paper presents first the fundamentals of the learning strategy adopted (problem based learning), intended to develop teamwork abilities in the students. It then describes the context and challenges faced up in the case study, as well as the essentials of the learning activities proposed. The topic involved in this experience is the thermodynamic science, an energy engineering science, taught in the several engineering degrees of the University of Burgos, Spain. Two sets of an average of 50 students participate in the experience during the periods 2012-2013 and 2013-2014. The teams of four members were formed. At the beginning of the course, every team developed its own schedule and internal task assignment to face up an open ended problem, along four months of teamwork. Finally, the paper discusses the student’s achievement and perception related to the self-coordination and self-planning mechanisms adopted. The paper could be of interest to those readers that want to promote teamwork as a critical skill in other science courses.