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Session 2560

Enhancing Construction Management Retention By Enhancing Communication Skills Karim M. El-Dash Zagazig University - Benha Branch

Abstract Construction management education emphasizes the qualitative and administrative aspects of construction such as contracts, specifications, value engineering, resource management, quality assurance, and quality control. Most of these topics conflict with the demeanor of engineering student who feels more comfortable with problem-solving technique than these humanities-like topics. The instructor of construction management course feels abandoned from the students at the beginning of the semester. The challenge to the instructor is how to convert the students to his side against their habitual learning attitude. This paper introduces one approach currently being implemented in the Construction Management program at Zagazig University-Benha branch, Egypt, to apply the required change. In this technique, the instructor motivates and enhances the communication skills of the students through discussion sessions held once a week after a lecture. The discussion may take the form of a student-led seminar followed by a question-answer session. It may be in the form of student-student discussion or instructor-led discussion. It was observed that the students become more active and involved in the subject and its implementations. The students showed more dedication to the course and to the instructor. Introduction In this era, the national development is based primarily on the strength of its infrastructure including transportation, education, health, water resources control, and housing facilities. The subsequent needs are focusing on how to deliver these services in effective capabilities and fully functional manner mean time. Current and anticipated methods of applying technologies in infrastructure delivery systems, construction management, construction engineering, and material engineering urged engineering industry to revolutionize its methodology and practice. These rapid changes in needs and practice demand a synchronous mutation in the engineering education. Particularly, educators need to overcome the traditional perspective of courses with concentrated subjects to widely needed integrated courses and integrated education. Interdisciplinary education collaborated by communication skills is very important for engineers with managerial functions in their technical ventures and even for engineers pursuing their careers in nontechnical trends. A constant growth of interest in nontechnical education among engineers is commonly observed and reflected in the design of engineering curricula in the United States where some innovative curricula assign as much as 50-60% of the required credits to be fulfilled by free or directed elective courses(5). This paper introduces one approach for integrating educational model currently being implemented in the Construction Management program at Zagazig University. In this approach,

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El-Dash, K. M. (2000, June), Enhancing Construction Management Retention By Enhancing Communication Skills Paper presented at 2000 Annual Conference, St. Louis, Missouri. 10.18260/1-2--8358