Collection

2011 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Lily Gossage

groups so that individuals areable to develop a sense of diversity within an inclusive environment.Defining the ProblemThe supposition that lack of perceived similarity affects the level of career interest and identitydevelopment of Latino/Hispanic engineering students prompts minority engineering programs toarrange for ethnically/racially-themed activities and events. These programs though well-intentioned, aim less at improving math skills or engineering career awareness as much as theyare valued for instilling students’ personal confidence, soft skills, and camaraderie within anenvironment of racially/ethnically like peers. Even while the dictum of these programs is to‘recruit and retain more under-represented minorities’, few activities

Collection

2011 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Rafael D. Alvarez; Raga M. Bakhiet; Theresa M. Garcia; Angeline V. Yang

tracktowards completing general education and major requirements in the precise timeline for graduation.Focused advising is also provided to help students with career and graduate education decisions bymeans of a designated academic counselor. Proceedings of the 2011 PSW American Society for Engineering Education Zone IV Conference  Copyright © 2011, American Society for Engineering Education  192 In addition to academic advising, SPSD students receive assistance with personal counseling.Existing MESA counselors help students to access the campus resources needed to work throughemotional, financial, and family difficulties to stay

Collection

2011 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

second objective of this paper, then, is to argue themerits of this particular team-teaching configuration. Specifically, the critical role ofcommunication instruction in the senior capstone course will be addressed, as will the role of thecommunication instructor. Finally, an argument will be made that this team-teachingconfiguration has improved engineering students’ writing skills and their ability to negotiateconflict with students on their design teams.History and Goals of Team TeachingTeam teaching is a collaborative teaching effort in which two or more faculty members deliverthe content of a single course, sharing the burden of course preparation, lecture, in-class tasks,and assessment 1, 2. There are several different team-teaching