Software development projects as a way for multidisciplinary soft and future skills education

TL;DR

This paper explores using short, intensive software development projects within multidisciplinary, multicultural groups to teach soft and future skills, demonstrating positive impacts on participants' communication, cooperation, digital skills, and self-reflection.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining problem-based, active, and group learning methodologies in software projects to enhance soft skills in diverse student groups.

Findings

Improved soft skills in communication and cooperation.

Enhanced digital skills and self-reflection.

Effective simulation of real-world stressful situations.

Abstract

Soft and future skills are in high demand in the modern job market. These skills are required for both technical and non-technical people. It is difficult to teach these competencies in a classical academic environment. The paper presents a possible approach to teaching in soft and future skills in a short, intensive joint project. In our case, it is a project within the Erasmus+ framework, but it can be organized in many different frameworks. In the project we use problem based learning, active learning and group-work teaching methodologies. Moreover, the approach put high emphasizes diversity. We arrange a set of multidisciplinary students in groups. Each group is working on software development tasks. This type of projects demand diversity, and only a part of the team needs technical skills. In our case less than half of participants had computer science background. Additionally, software development projects are usually interesting for non-technical students. The multicultural, multidisciplinary and international aspects are very important in a modern global working environment. On the other hand, short time of the project and its intensity allow to simulate stressful situations in a real word tasks. The effects of the project on the required competencies are measured using the KYSS method. The results prove that the presented method increased participants soft skills in communication, cooperation, digital skills and self reflection.