3T PLAY Tangible objects for developing Transversal skills at Technical universities
The 3T PLAY project develops playful activities with tangible objects to teach transversal skills to engineering students. Embedded in a premier engineering school, we take a research-based approach to identifying skills that are under-addressed in the higher education literature and skills of emerging importance for today’s environmental, social and economic challenges. The trident framework and activity guides have been iteratively developed through empirical observations and implementation, creating open-source resources for the engineering education and research communities.
Engineers and scientists must have more than just excellent technical knowledge and skills to provide leadership and solutions for the challenges faced by society.
While most science and engineering courses develop the technical skills specific to each discipline, there is an accompanying set of transversal skills that graduates should master to leverage their skills and knowledge.
These competences include, but are not limited to, negotiation, conflict resolution, intra- and interpersonal communication skills, inclusion, and ethical reasoning.
While there is strong, multilateral agreement on the importance of these skills for engineers, concern about the development opportunities provided by current engineering programs has been expressed by students, alumni, educators, institutions and accreditation bodies.
The contributions of the 3T PLAY project involve improving how engineering students are taught transversal skills, leveraging empirical investigations to explore current practices and assess interventions.
The resources developed by 3T PLAY provide evidence-informed, practical and adaptable approaches to teaching transversal skills to science and engineering students. As illustrated by the 3T PLAY framework [see Figure below], interventions targeting the development of transversal skills are designed to involve 3 types of pedagogical activities.
- Knowing (what is the skill, why it is important, and what strategies can be employed),
- Experiencing (engaging activities that intentionally leverage the skill), and
- Learning from Experience (explicit reflection prompts to help students transfer what they learned to their next project).
Approach
While tangibles are widely used to teach technical skills in engineering, we have found little prior evidence of their application for transversal skills development.
Therefore, the 3T PLAY team has worked with instructors in diverse educational settings to create, iterate and evaluate its trident framework for teaching transversal skills using tangibles to create micro-experiential learning opportunities focused on transversal skills.
The activities implement evidence-informed approaches including low-stakes experimentation, short feedback loops, iteration, desirable difficulties and opportunity for reflection.
Open access to the 3T Playbook
The activities developed by the project were published as individual chapters (PDF format) via the Zenodo platform. Both beta versions and finalized versions, following evaluation, feedback and implementation phases, were released throughout 2024. The resulting Playbook, which compiles all the chapters, was unveiled at a launch event during the SEFI Annual Conference in September 2024.
3T PLAY team
3T PLAY is a joint initiative of the Center for Learning Sciences (LEARN), the College of Management, the Teaching Support Center (CAPE) and the Discovery Learning Labs (DLL) Makerspace. The project is kindly supported by the LEGO Foundation, in the context of exploring future skills through new, playful and creative learning approaches.
The 3T PLAY project enjoys strong internal support at EPFL and increasing recognition internationally. The EPFL Vice-Presidencies for Education and Student Affairs and Outreach have put strong emphasis on the need for teaching and learning transversal skills at scale across campus. The integration of 3T PLAY at EPFL is exemplified by its executive board members, which include the unit heads of the Center for Career and Transversal skills(CCTC), DLL, CAPE, LEARN and the emeritus director of the College of Management. Externally, 3T PLAY activities are facilitated by a growing number of institutions located in 7 countries.
- Siara Isaac – Project manager & researcher
- Yousef Jalali – Researcher
- Joely de Lima – Pedagogical Advisor
- Valentina Rossi – Pedagogical Advisor
- Marta Ruiz Cumi – Administrative support
