Learning is promoted when there is faculty modeling of the learning process . Effective teaching emphasizes linking established concepts to new situations . An approach that promotes learning is to emphasize interpersonal collaboration. When alumni are asked what kinds of skills they need on the job and how well their institution prepared them, the ability to work in groups is the most frequently cited skill that colleges and universities have failed to help students develop. These skills are being learned on the job instead.
Effective teaching emphasizes rich and frequent feedback on performance from faculty and peers .
The approaches are part of a curriculum that promotes cross-disciplinary skills publicly held to be important. Students survey it again and again and again. Contrast this with another engineering school where students in survey class practice their skills in helping the community survey public parks by laying out boundaries and fencing for landscaping purposes. Survey skills are applied in a real-life setting in a way that benefits the students' learning and the community. In a class on fluency disorders, the professor sends students out in pairs, one student as a mild, moderate, or severe stutterer, the other as an observer.