Teaching Beyond the Curriculum

Abstract

The focus on employability skills in higher education is broadly general and spans across all disciplines. While there is widespread debate on the appropriateness or efficacy of linking higher education delivered employment skills to employability (Boreham, 2004; Cranmer, 2006; Lum, 1999; Mason, Williams, & Cranmer, 2009; Star & Hammer, 2008; Williams, 2005; Yorke, 2005) within some disciplines, there is recognition that some of these identified skills are crucial to professional success. Within the UK built environment, the 1994 ‘Latham Report’ established the groundwork for collaborative working as critical to the success of the industry (Latham, 1994). Collaboration or teamwork is dependent on many of the other employment skills identified. For example, a 2016 study found that in the built environment, communication was the highest prioritised transferable skill, ‘especially as teams integrate their skills to solve problems…’(Crawford & Dalton, 2016). Within the context of this work, it is therefore useful to introduce the premise that teamwork is a competence, which is comprised of a number of different skills and is the ability to apply them appropriately (Holmes, 2001; Suleman, 2018). Competencies are something that can be developed through action that incorporates both experience and reflection (Rieckmann, 2012). This paper seeks to examine teaching teamwork in the built environment context, how it can be conceptualised into component parts, and incorporated into a programme of built environment postgraduate higher education.