A Comparative Study of Collaborative and Inclusive Skills Development in Capstone Design Teams at Three Different Engineering Institutions

Sindia Rivera-Jimenez; Courtney Pfluger; Anastasia Hauser

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: DEED Technical Session 4 Best in DEED
Page Count: 15
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41585
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41585
Download Count: 643

Paper Authors

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Courtney Pfluger Northeastern University

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Dr. Courtney Pfluger took a position in Fall 2011 as an Assistant Teaching Professor at Northeastern University as a part of the First Year Engineering Faculty and affiliated Faculty in the Chemical Engineering Department. Dr. Pfluger redesigned and piloted the first-year curriculum which included engineering design and computational problem solving using the Engineering Grand Challenges as real-world applications of global issues. She developed and ran for 8 years a faculty-led international program to Brazil focused on Sustainable Energy and Brazilian Culture. This program educates students on the effects of various energy systems and the challenges of social and environmental justice in developing countries. In 2017, Dr. Pfluger moved into the ChE department where she implemented improvements in the Transport 2 Lab and Capstone courses. She assists Capstone students to develop dynamic design projects that address and help solve real-world, global challenges. Dr. Pfluger has served as the AIChE Student Chapter Faculty Advisor for 10 years and will become chair of the AIChE Student Chapter Committee in November 2021. She is a Mathworks Teaching Fellow and has won serval teaching awards such as Northeastern Chemical Engineering Department Sioui Award for Excellence in Teaching, Northeastern College of Engineering Essigmann Outstanding Teaching Award and AIChE Award for Innovation in Chemical Engineering Education.

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Sindia Rivera-Jimenez University of Florida

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Dr. Rivera-Jiménez is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Engineering Education (EED) and an affiliate faculty to the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, University of Florida (UF). Her research interests include broadening participation (i.e., community colleges, historically underrepresented minorities), organizational change using culturally relevant theories of change, strategic agency in communities of practice, and collaborative and inclusive environments in teams. Outside the classroom, she serves as a creator and facilitator of professional development workshops for students, faculty, and industry on social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion in engineering.

She is the co-founder of the group #LatinXinChE, a group organized to support LatinX trainees and chemical engineering professionals. She serves as the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Committee chair at EED and representative of the college of engineering committee. She is also a faculty mentor of the Women Advancement and Mentoring Committee in the Chemical Engineering department and the academic advisor for the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Student Chapter. At the American Society for Engineering Education, she is a board member of The Equity, Culture and Social Justice Division and the Commission for Diversity Equity and Inclusion and representative for the Commission for Diversity Equity and Inclusion (CDEI). At AIChE, she is a board member for the Chemical Education Division and an elected member of the Societal Impact Operating Council (SIOC). In 2019 and 2020, she was recognized with the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering Undergraduate Advisor/Mentor of the Year Award and the Women’s History Month Recognition given by the UF Engineering Student Advisory Council. Finally, she received the inaugural 2021 IDEAL Star Award (unsolicited) presented by AIChE due to my efforts in developing professional development programming at the national level toward Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-Racism for industry and academia.

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Anastasia Hauser University of Kentucky

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Abstract

Education practitioners use teamwork experiences in capstone design as an opportunity for students to address the social implications of the engineering profession by challenging them to solve complex and open-ended problems. It is well known that working in diverse and inclusive teams fosters innovation, problem-solving, empathy, safety, and belongingness. These team attributes are learned skills that employers specifically look for while hiring engineers in the workforce. In addition, ABET accreditation and professional societies’ codes of ethics, and their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statements, such as AIChE and ASEE, have highlighted the importance of working in collaborative and inclusive teams. However, in many cases, engineering educators assume that students possess the skills to foster inclusive and effective team collaboration leading to these topics not being taught in the classroom and leads to misperceptions of these skills by the students. This paper examines the following research question: what pedagogical strategies can engineering educators use to foster inclusive and effective team collaboration in capstone design. The research study was framed using the Team Learning Beliefs and Behaviors Model. In this model, team effectiveness is shaped by the individual's beliefs about the team's interpersonal context, leading to their willingness to engage in learning behavior. This study takes place in three large, R1 Universities, two public and one private, with varying demographics. The model's different dimensions were measured using the Team Learning Beliefs & Behaviors (TLBB) Questionnaire composed of scales taken from validated questionnaires (Van den Bossche, et.al. 2006). The faculty involved in this research implemented teamwork-related pedagogies that foster collaboration by making diversity and inclusion a central feature of student skill development. These strategies include but are not limited to team charters/community agreements, project management, defined roles and responsibilities set by the teams, activities on effective and inclusive discussions, team peer assessments, and meaningful feedback. The participants for this study were 138 senior-year undergraduate students in an upper-level chemical engineering Capstone Design course, following different teamwork training skills provided by the professors at three institutions. The participants voluntarily completed a 15-minute survey that included information about demographics, open-ended questions to describe their perceptions of an effective team, a collaborative team, and an inclusive team, in addition to the TLBB validated questionnaire. This paper specifically addresses the portion of the survey related to student perceptions of learning behaviors related to effective teamwork. The results of this multi-institutional work provided insight into pedagogical strategies to foster effective team learning behaviors in chemical engineering Capstone Design.

Citation
Format

Pfluger, C., & Rivera-Jimenez, S., & Hauser, A. (2022, August), A Comparative Study of Collaborative and Inclusive Skills Development in Capstone Design Teams at Three Different Engineering Institutions Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41585

TY - CPAPER
AB - Education practitioners use teamwork experiences in capstone design as an opportunity for students to address the social implications of the engineering profession by challenging them to solve complex and open-ended problems. It is well known that working in diverse and inclusive teams fosters innovation, problem-solving, empathy, safety, and belongingness. These team attributes are learned skills that employers specifically look for while hiring engineers in the workforce. In addition, ABET accreditation and professional societies’ codes of ethics, and their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statements, such as AIChE and ASEE, have highlighted the importance of working in collaborative and inclusive teams. However, in many cases, engineering educators assume that students possess the skills to foster inclusive and effective team collaboration leading to these topics not being taught in the classroom and leads to misperceptions of these skills by the students.
This paper examines the following research question: what pedagogical strategies can engineering educators use to foster inclusive and effective team collaboration in capstone design. The research study was framed using the Team Learning Beliefs and Behaviors Model. In this model, team effectiveness is shaped by the individual's beliefs about the team's interpersonal context, leading to their willingness to engage in learning behavior. This study takes place in three large, R1 Universities, two public and one private, with varying demographics. The model's different dimensions were measured using the Team Learning Beliefs & Behaviors (TLBB) Questionnaire composed of scales taken from validated questionnaires (Van den Bossche, et.al. 2006). The faculty involved in this research implemented teamwork-related pedagogies that foster collaboration by making diversity and inclusion a central feature of student skill development. These strategies include but are not limited to team charters/community agreements, project management, defined roles and responsibilities set by the teams, activities on effective and inclusive discussions, team peer assessments, and meaningful feedback.
The participants for this study were 138 senior-year undergraduate students in an upper-level chemical engineering Capstone Design course, following different teamwork training skills provided by the professors at three institutions. The participants voluntarily completed a 15-minute survey that included information about demographics, open-ended questions to describe their perceptions of an effective team, a collaborative team, and an inclusive team, in addition to the TLBB validated questionnaire. This paper specifically addresses the portion of the survey related to student perceptions of learning behaviors related to effective teamwork. The results of this multi-institutional work provided insight into pedagogical strategies to foster effective team learning behaviors in chemical engineering Capstone Design.

AU - Courtney Pfluger
AU - Sindia Rivera-Jimenez
AU - Anastasia Hauser
CY - Minneapolis, MN
DA - 2022/08/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - A Comparative Study of Collaborative and Inclusive Skills Development in Capstone Design Teams at Three Different Engineering Institutions
UR - https://peer.asee.org/41585
DO - 10.18260/1-2--41585
ER -