Teaching Is Soft Skills to a Diverse Student Population: Case Studies Using JAD and Co-operative Learning Techniques
Theda Thomas, Carina de Villiers
It is important for Information Systems graduates to have good interpersonal and communication skills as well as technical skills. Fostering these skills in the tertiary environment is not always easy. This paper looks at a way of using Joint Application Design (JAD) and co-operative learning techniques in the classroom to promote the learning of the soft skills needed by IS graduates. The study also investigated ways in which the method needed to be modified in order to deal with the diversity ofstudents that were present in the classroom. An action research study was done using four case studies with the learning method being adapted between each.
Theda Thomas is head of the Department of Business Information Systems at the Port Elizabeth Technikon. She recently earned her PhD in informatics with, "A Teaching Enviromnent for Learning Soft Skills Applicable to Information Systems Development." Dr. Thomas' research interests are in the fields of developing soft skills in IS graduates and the use of cooperative learning techniques in both the classroom and over the Internet. She currently teaches a course at the second-year level aimed at developing the non-technical skills of students doing the National Diploma: Information Technology. In addition, Dr. Thomas teaches a fourth-level course in data administration as well as beinga promotion for various master students.
Carina de Villiers is head of the Department of Informatics and acting director of the School for Information Technology at the University of Pretoria. She joined the University of Pretoria in 1996 after 17 years at Unisa as lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems. For several years, Dr. de Villiers was involved in the research project on computer-assisted instruction at Unisa. She holds aBSc in computer scienceandmathematics, anHonsBSc in computer science, a secondary school teaching diploma, a tertiary teaching diploma, an MEd in didactics and a DCom in informatics. The title of her doctoral thesis was, "The Use of Information Technology in a Co-operative Learning Environment." Dr. de Villiers currently teaches honors and master courses inelectronic commerce andamaster coursein human-computer interaction. She is also a promotion for master and doctoral students. Dr. de Villiers' research interests include the use of information technology in teaching, computer-supported cooperative learning, humancomputer interaction, and electronic commerce. She has published more than 40 refereed papers locally and internationally, has participated in 25 international conferences, and is coauthor of eight books on computer literacy.
Return to the Table of Contents