Paper Authors

Abstract

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

Session 3325

BESTEAMS: Building Engineering Student Team Effectiveness And Management Systems

L. Schmidt, P. Mead, M. Natishan/ C. Lathan, S. Brown/ I. Goswami/ S. Mouring University of Maryland, The Catholic University of America, Morgan State University, United States Naval Academy

Abstract

The current paper introduces the BESTEAMS Project. BESTEAMS seeks to transform the professional engineering environment into one comfortable for all by training engineering students to recognize and accept diverse learning, communication, and behavior styles in their colleagues. Here we report the findings of our student focus group sessions on type and amount of team training students get before working in a project and their perceptions of differences in team member behavior that fall along gender, ethnic, or learning styles lines. We also present the first data from two student focus groups conducted after the BESTEAMS pilot team training was done in the course.

1. The BESTEAMS Project: Building Student Team Effectiveness

BESTEAMS stands for Building Engineering Student Team Effectiveness and Management Systems. The BESTEAMS Partners are: BESTEAMS Partners are The Catholic University of America (CUA), Morgan State University (MSU), the United States Naval Academy (USNA) and the University of Maryland (UM) engineering programs plus the Center for Teaching Excellence at UM. This partnership represents a wide spectrum of cultural environments with diverse student and faculty populations. We include private and public universities, a historically black college and university (HBCU), a military academy, and majority institutions.

The BESTEAMS Project seeks to transform the professional engineering environment into one comfortable for all by taking action to train engineering students and faculty in recognizing and accepting diverse learning, communication, and behavior styles in their colleagues. We propose our Engineering Project Team Training System (EPTTS) as the means to achieve this change. The EPTTS includes information on personal learning styles [Kolb81], gender and racial diversity, and how they manifest in teamwork. The potentially sensitive diversity issue is approached along the more neutral avenue of individual learning style diversity. Discovering learning style differences interests students and paves the way for the EPTTS’ short segments on effective team skills and the manifestations of gender and racial diversity in mixed-gender and mixed-racial teams.

• Citation

• Format
  • APA
  • APA - LaTeX bibitem
  • MLA
  • MLA - LaTeX bibitem
  • Bibtex
  • EndNote - RIS

Mouring, S., & Brown, S., & Mead, P., & Natishan, M., & Goswami, I., & Lathan, C., & Schmidt, L. (1999, June), Besteams: Building Engineering Team Effectiveness And Management Systems Paper presented at 1999 Annual Conference, Charlotte, North Carolina. 10.18260/1-2--7885