Enhancing Creative Problem-Solving Skills in Future Engineers through Technology-Mediated Collaborative Inquiry Learning

Creative problem-solving skills (CPSSs) have grown in importance owing to the increased role of engineering in addressing societal challenges. The broadening scope of engineering practice highlights the importance of creating a broad and balanced curriculum and course design to develop understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of engineering and enhance students' CPSSs. The paper constitutes a general description of the ESP course that has developed a coherent approach to fostering interdisciplinary mindset and CPSSs in future engineers. The course design relies on collaborative technology-mediated methodology, laying stress on investigative learning process and its strong links to domain-specific knowledge and expertise. The authors specify the suggested strategies and tools designed to support the processes of collaborative inquiry. The paper describes the benefits of implementing a technology-mediated collaborative inquiry learning approach to ESP teaching in engineering education and presents the findings on how the suggested framework can enrich the learning experiences of engineering students.