Soft skills and digital projects

Initial situation

The cross-disciplinary course “Understanding the Digital World” is open to students from all faculties. This course aims to provide a deep awareness of how digital technology is disrupting society and the means to think and act in a committed and critical way in relation to these changes.

The teaching team wished to meet a double objective through this course: to offer a “general culture on the digital” and to develop soft skills through the interaction and the collaboration of students and disciplines.

To reach this second objective and allow students to develop their soft skills, the teaching team developed tools and implemented innovative solutions in the framework of project-based learning.

Project implementation

The first semester of the course takes the form of an ex cathedra course. Different digital themes are taught by a team of teachers from different faculties. The semester is enriched by public conferences “Let’s talk digital”. These conferences aim to create a dialogue between the university community and the city by debating digital issues with experts from the academic and economic worlds, international organizations and civil society. Students participate in these conferences by asking questions to the speakers.

The second semester is organized as “Digital Clinics”. In this context, students deal with concrete digital issues through use cases. The case studies are proposed by internal UNIGE colleagues and external partners (e.g. Geneva Bar Association, Wikipedia, FRC, City of Geneva, FSO).

During the semester, 7 to 8 working groups composed of 7 to 10 students from the various faculties collaborate and develop solutions. Thus, each student contributes with his/her personal skills and knowledge from his/her discipline.

At the beginning of the semester, the working groups are organized according to the students’ preferences and disciplinary skills. The composition of each group is designed to encourage interdisciplinarity. Each work group is supervised by an assistant previously trained in project-based learning and soft skills. At the beginning of the semester, students receive an introduction to project-based learning, soft skills, information skills and ethics. The objective is to provide them with notions and reflexes useful for the realization of their project.

During the semester, students have 2 hours of free time each week and 2 hours of work in work spaces such as the “FacLab” (spaces designed to encourage collaborative work). Students carry out various weekly activities during the semester. These activities allow them to develop soft skills: organization, teamwork, communication, problem solving, critical thinking. Assistants ensure that students take turns participating in order to allow for active participation of the whole group in the various pedagogical activities (conducting the session, project journal, taking notes, giving feedback, oral presentation, attentive listening, etc.). Students develop autonomy, problem analysis, solution development and critical thinking skills. Partners (case submitters) bring their expertise to the working group.

The solutions developed (deliverables) by the student groups can take various forms (e.g. an educational video, a website, a report, recommendations, an application, a computer program, a service). The deliverables are published, freely accessible on the course website. This publication aims to serve the greatest number of people and thus contribute to the service to the City but also to allow third parties to continue the development of the deliverables. The projects are presented by the students at the end of the semester during a public session that is filmed and broadcasted online.

A general evaluation grid for soft skills has been designed to better illustrate the competencies to be developed and to support the assistants in their supervision and evaluation of the groups. This grid breaks down each competency into different dimensions and indicates for each of them the indicators that detail it. The grid defines the responsibilities that students must assume in turn. Some responsibilities are completely individual, such as drawing up an agenda, facilitating discussions, or taking minutes. Others can be done as a group, such as an oral presentation of the project’s progress or the development of a timeline. Some of the tasks are related to production, while others are related to attitude or behavior, for example, attentive listening.

The final grade considers the individual performance of each student during the semester and the collective achievements.

At the end of the semester, students evaluate the educational experience. The University’s Career Center intervenes to address the development of soft skills in the professional world. The course requires active and sustained participation from students. This effort is rewarded with a certificate that highlights the soft skills developed and the activities carried out. The students write, together and for their group, a part of the certificate.

Thoughts and advice

The feedback is very positive. However, students are not used to these innovative teaching methods (interaction, public lectures, flipped classroom, project-based learning, collaborative projects, etc.). This requires creativity, time and perseverance to change practices and habits.

The workload for the management team is significant. The team notes the difficulty of raising awareness of the importance of skills assessment and the issue of soft skills in general.

The grid was used by the management team to assign points, make comments and give individual feedback.

It was not always easy to individualize the point allocations. Students were not able to exercise all responsibilities in some of the larger groups.

The teaching team recommends that the management team be trained in project-based learning and soft skills in collaboration with the Teaching and Learning Support team.

Students’ opinions

“It’s not often that you can work on a team of students from multiple faculties. Great opportunity to put yourself in play and apply your knowledge in a real project.”

“Very well organized, rewarding course. I do not come from law school so this course allowed me to acquire knowledge that was different from my other courses. Good atmosphere in my group. I recommend to as many people as possible to take this course as many people as possible to take this course, hoping that the next ones will be able to take it in person. Thank you to the whole coaching team for the work done.”

“In addition to the subject matter, I learned a lot in this course about how to work well in how to work well in a group. I was able to practice my communication skills to manage the project and the deliverable with my team. It was also a pleasure to have met nice people from different from different backgrounds. ”