Collaboration within the building process is difficult. This calls for employees who are experienced in collaborating in interdisciplinary teams. To fulfill this demand, a multidisciplinary course in “advanced building design” was developed at the Technical University of Denmark. The goal of the course is training of transprofessionalism and teamwork at the final stage of an engineering education. The collaboration of the students and professors participating in the course was studied in the present work. Questionnaires were answered by students and professors. The study has the following finding. The students and professors gained the experience that collaboration may be improved. The traditional role distribution may be disbanded and generally a flat team structure, where decisions are taken in consensus, can be induced. Transprofessionalism during the course was appreciated and, furthermore, it was experienced as a challenge. It is worthwhile to offer a multidisciplinary course and give engineering students experience in new collaboration methods.

Today’s engineers must be more than just technically competent. To be successful in our increasingly global economy in which teamwork and interdisciplinary interaction are the norm, engineers must have excellent communication skills. In recognition of industry needs, the San José State University College of Engineering redesigned its technical communication course to ensure that students graduate with writing and speaking skills that will transfer readily to their career needs and the global arena. The course aims to motivate students through exploring topics that are meaningful to them and using communication formats that they will see in the workplace. Combining technical communication with study of the environment broadens the course to meet multiple Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology outcomes. This paper describes the course goals, organization, management, selected assignments, and assessment. Assessment data indicate that at the end of the semester students, on average, have gained between 0.8 and 1.1 points on a 12-point evaluation rubric and have gained an appreciation of the unique characteristics of and need for technical writing.

The traditional teaching methods used for training civil engineers are currently being called into question as a result of the new knowledge and skills now required by the labor market. In addition, the European Higher Education Area is requesting that students be given a greater say in their learning. In the subject called Construction and Building Materials at the Civil Engineering School of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, a path was set three academic years ago to lead to an improvement in traditional teaching by introducing active methodologies. The innovations are based on cooperative learning, new technologies, and continuous assessment. The writers’ proposal is to offer their experience as a contribution to the debate on how students can be encouraged to acquire the skills currently demanded from a civil engineer, though not overlooking solid, top-quality training. From the outcomes obtained, it can be concluded that using new teaching techniques to supplement a traditional approach provides more opportunities for students to learn while boosting their motivation. In our case, the introduction of these changes has resulted in an increased pass rate of 29% on average, when such a figure is considered in the light of the mean value of passes during the last decade.

This research explores the effectiveness of using simulation as a tool for enhancing classroom learning in the Civil Engineering Department of the University of Minnesota at Twin Cities. The authors developed a modern transportation planning software package, Agent-Based Demand and Assignment Model (ADAM), that is consistent with our present understanding of travel behavior, that is platform independent, and that is easy to learn and is thus usable by students. An in-class project incorporated ADAM and the performance of this education strategy was evaluated through preclass survey, postclass survey, scores in the quiz focusing on travel demand modeling, and final scores. Results showed that ADAM effectively enhanced students’ self-reported understanding of transportation planning and their skills of forming opinions, evaluating projects, and making judgments. Students who prefer visual and active learning were found to benefit more than others through simulation-based teaching strategy. Findings in this research could have significant implications for future practice of simulation-based teaching strategy.