Pulford, S., & Falkenberg, C. V. (2016, June), “Give Me Every Idea You Have”: Building with Improvisation in Engineering Education  Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.26241

\bibitem{asee_peer_26241}
  Pulford, S., \& Falkenberg, C. V. (2016, June), \emph{“Give Me Every Idea You Have”: Building with Improvisation in Engineering Education}
  Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana.
  10.18260/p.26241

Stephanie Pulford and Cibele V. Falkenberg.  "“Give Me Every Idea You Have”: Building with Improvisation in Engineering Education".  2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2016, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2016.  https://peer.asee.org/26241 Internet.  13 Apr, 2025

\bibitem{asee_peer_26241}
  Stephanie Pulford and Cibele V. Falkenberg.
  "“Give Me Every Idea You Have”: Building with Improvisation in Engineering Education".
  \emph{2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2016, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2016.
  https://peer.asee.org/26241 Internet.  13 Apr, 2025

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_26241
author = "Stephanie Pulford and Cibele V. Falkenberg"
title = "“Give Me Every Idea You Have”: Building with Improvisation in Engineering Education"
booktitle = "2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2016"
month = "June"
address = "New Orleans, Louisiana"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/26241}
number = {10.18260/p.26241}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Improvisational theatre, or improv, is commonly associated with live comedy, but this is only the most visible facet of the well-established tradition of improvisational performance training in theatre pedagogy.  Naturally, practicing improv sharpens one’s communication, particularly extemporaneous speaking. It has also been shown to confer a number of transferable skills and habits of mind. Improv training and practice enhances creativity, confidence, focus, and interpersonal perceptiveness. Improv activities help people to take productive risks. Moreover, improvisational ensemble work promotes inclusion, acceptance, trust and collaboration—interpersonal skills that are vital to today’s engineer. 

Recently, improv training has been used among engineering and science practitioners to great effect. These pioneering enactments of improvisatory pedagogy in STEM show explicitly that improvisatory skills can indeed be learned and practiced deliberately, whether or not the learner has any formal theatrical training or inclination.  Yet little guidance or background literature exists for an engineering educator who would like to incorporate improvisatory concepts into their teaching and class designs. 

In this exploratory paper, we provide an overview of improvisation techniques and concepts that are relevant to engineering education. These concepts are drawn from praxis literature and traditions in theatre and comedy. To illustrate these concepts, we profile the experiences and practices of five different educators who apply elements of improvisation in their classrooms. We analyze themes across the improvisational educators’ narratives, and highlight both techniques for improvisational teaching and lessons from practice. Based on this analysis, we offer recommendations and future work towards better establishing improvisational techniques in engineering education. Our objective is to make improvisational pedagogy visible, accessible, and feasible to engineering educators. 

AU  - Stephanie Pulford
AU  - Cibele V. Falkenberg
CY  - New Orleans, Louisiana
DA  - 2016/06/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - “Give Me Every Idea You Have”: Building with Improvisation in Engineering Education
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/26241
DO  - 10.18260/p.26241
ER  -