“Student Centred Learning” Approach in the Development of Social Skills: Implementation in an Experimental Soil Mechanics Course

Abstract

This paper presents the teaching framework of the “Experimental Soil Mechanics” course, which has been applied at the University of Thessaly (UTh) during the last five academic years and aims to combine the acquisition of scientific knowledge with the development of social skills of students. The latter reflects the needs of post-modern societies, induced by high competition and changing conditions derived from globalisation. For this purpose, the “Student Centred Learning” (SCL) approach has been adopted by means of various teaching techniques: questionnaires, diagnostic assessment, dialog, experiential learning, laboratory experiments, individual work and team work, oral presentation, writing technical reports, role playing, formative evaluation and differentiated teaching. The benefits of SCL to the knowledge targets of the course were direct; however only a qualitative evaluation on the development of skills of students was possible, based mainly on the formative evaluation conducted every week after the completion of the lesson and the hetero-evaluation among students. The results show that the SCL approach provides an effective learning environment for the development of the social skills of students, e.g. communication, initiative, responsibility, collaboration, critical thinking, adaptability, self-confidence, tolerance, leadership. © ISSMGE.