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John P. O'Connell*, H.D. Forsyth Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering
Thornton Hall, University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
(804)924-3428/(804)982-2658/jpo2x@virginia.edu
Mark A. Shields, Division of Technology, Culture and Communication
University of Virginia
ABSTRACT
Engineers are facing problem-solving challenges that are not only more technically complex, but also more contentious in their ethical, sociological and cultural dimensions. Students must develop strategies for assimilating broader technological knowledge and methodology, so that as professionals they will be able to analyze complex situations and design innovative and realistic alternative solutions over a range of cultural, economic and natural contexts. This paper describes a novel collaboration of teachers that fosters a foundation of student professional development, teamwork, engineering ethics, communication skills, and intercultural understanding in the first-year engineering program of the University of Virginia's School of Engineering and Applied Science.
A small committee of University of Virginia engineering faculty and staff has defined professional development (PD) values and objectives for undergraduate engineering education and sought to determine how they can be fostered in a curriculum. The framework is a set of attributes and experiences (Shields and O'Connell, 1997). Starting in fall 1995, unusual teaching collaborations were pursued to implement aspects of the PD vision objectives in first-year courses of our School (Pfaffenburger, et al., 1996). This paper describes these collaborative teaching efforts by focusing on the fall 1996 term when the courses were closely linked and considerable assessment data were gathered from the students.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: THE UVA MODEL
The University of Virginia engineering faculty and staff developed a framework document outlining the key attributes and experiences of PD; met with alumni, business, faculty, and other representatives to solicit their input to the document; and, starting in fall 1995, pursued teaching collaborations to implement aspects of the PD vision.
The internal document, "Foundations and Benchmarks of Professional Development," identified seven "attributes" and six "experiences" which represent the key dimensions of PD that our undergraduate engineering curriculum should cultivate. Table 1 lists the UVa PD attributes.
These expressions are fully compatible with ABET 2000 criteria (Shields and O'Connell, 1997).
Graduates beginning their careers should have certain qualities:
The expectation is that students possessing a significant measure and balance of these characteristics are most likely to become successful professionals.
Our view is that to nurture these attributes, students must have a rich variety of experiences and environments. Table 2 gives a concise expression of the general experiences to achieve the objectives.
Students grow and develop confidence best in certain environments and situations:
The expectation is that living these experiences and assimilating their lessons should give graduates confidence, wisdom, and adaptability for lifelong service and accomplishment.
Experiences are connected to attributes in several concrete ways. For example, students may enhance their Technological Capability by analyzing the concept and design of an engineering device or system. They may expand their Industrial Readiness by visiting engineering and manufacturing companies or by assessing the potential impacts of a novel device's cost, reliability, and safety. They may sharpen their Communication Skills by researching a technical subject and compiling a professional annotated bibliography or by explaining a complex technological topic in terms that non engineers might understand. The intention is to support each attribute with a variety of experiences as well as to have students work on projects that provide multi-attribute experiences.
COLLABORATIVE TEACHING OF THE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT MODEL AT UVA
During the fall semester 1996, the authors (a sociologist of technology and a chemical engineer) collaboratively taught two first-semester undergraduate courses to implement PD into studies at UVa. One course was a required core technical communications course (TCC 101) typically taught in sections of 25 students by faculty of the multidisciplinary Division of Technology, Culture, and Communications, using a common syllabus but with specific assignments tailored to each instructor's disciplinary strengths. (Approximately 25% of entering students are given advanced placement credit for this course.) The course introduces students to the uses of oral and written language communication, stressing their relevance to professionalism in engineering and applied science. Students learn how to search and retrieve technical information, write abstracts, essays, and reports, and give oral presentations for a variety of audiences. One key project assignment introduces students to fields of engineering and helps them choose a major. Other assignments address technical and human aspects of engineering, technology, society, and ethics.
The other course, taken concurrently, was a required cross-disciplinary engineering design class (ENGR 164) taught in multiple sections of 35 students by engineering faculty from several different disciplines working from a common set of goals but not the same syllabus. These goals involve lectures, workshops, and five assigned projects to cover: open-ended design case studies via individual and team designs; methodologies for computation, problem solving and conceptual design; consideration of engineering economics, environmental aspects, quality and safety; professional responsibilities and ethics; and career opportunities for engineers.
Student enrollments in TCC 101 and ENGR 164 sections are not normally coordinated and were not coordinated for the other sections taught during 1995-6. (These courses were coordinated in a similar way in fall, 1995 with four instructors.) Both years, the Engineering Dean's Office to assigned incoming students at random to the paired sections and altogether they could be considered representative of the entering first-year class.
The 1996 collaboration had two groups of 28 students (totaling 12% of the entering class), each group taking a section of TCC 101 and a section of ENGR 164 from the authors. The section classes were of the same length on mostly the same days of the week, and the individual syllabi for the sections of each course were identical. As in the regular sections of each course, assignments ranged from short ones in resource utilization and generic communication skills to multiple-week projects analyzing information and designing alternative products and processes. Compared to the regular sections of each course, the paired sections were distinguished by generally more intensive student teamwork; more extensive assignments and in-class activities of broader socio-technological concern; joint formulation by the teachers of project goals, statements and activities of the courses; coordinated due dates; generally more extensive use of university library and electronic information resources; joint grading of team oral presentations; and more extensively coupled and systematic evaluations of the courses and teachers.
In terms of the PD Attributes, our course objectives were selected in the order of importance of Table 3. Students were also taking 2 or more technically oriented courses such as chemistry, mathematics, and computers at the same time as our courses. This influenced the selection of emphases for the attributes.
The emphasis of both courses was on systematizing data gathering, establishing criteria for weighing alternatives, and choosing processes for making optimal conclusions and implementing changes. The goal was to engage students to address difficulties in real-world situations as much as possible, given their experience, judgment and commitment, while allowing them the satisfaction of arriving at plausible solutions. Assignments in both courses also stressed the fundamentals of concise technical writing, well-organized written reports and oral presentations with rich graphical materials, and extensive use of the library and the World Wide Web. Most projects, ranging in duration from one to five weeks, were carried out either in pairs or in teams of three to five members.
In ENGR 164 the projects were: finding and analyzing a current product liability case; physically unwrapping and disassembling an inexpensive consumer product (in two workshops) and discussing its scientific principles, conceptual design, materials, economics, manufacture, maintenance, failure, disposal; brainstorming options, selecting viable concepts and doing detailed designs of ways to "make the UVa libraries more user-friendly"; researching and expressing in detail the range of impacts of commercial air transportation on the environment; designing a single piece of equipment or facility and a procedure for an instructor-selected aspect of flight, ground and support commercial airline operations that would minimize adverse effects while maintaining safety and economic viability in a global setting. The first assignment was for individuals. The next was in pairs, the third was in trios and the last two multi-week projects were done by quartets. Only in the last two did students work with the same individuals for more than one project. Each project had one or two written reports, with the final project also having 25-minute group oral presentations with questioning. A field trip was taken to the regional airport. There were also two "hands-on" workshops analyzing the workings of a refrigerator and air conditioner. The product disassembly and "hands-on" workshops utilized the laboratories and benefited from the participation of the laboratory instructor for the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering.
In TCC 101, projects included several individual writing assignments to improve style, grammar, punctuation, conciseness, word choice, topic sentences, critical analysis, and argumentation. Some of these were peer-reviewed and subsequently revised. One early paper weighed the ethical aspects of the Dow Corning silicone breast implants controversy in light of scientific-technical knowledge. Students also received instruction in organizing and delivering one individual and two team oral presentations. Most class time was used for cooperative learning workshops in which students discussed an issue, solved a problem, and/or gathered information in groups of three or more and then shared their group's results with the rest of the class. These exercises also improved students' abilities to give extemporaneous talks. Two large, multi-week projects were the other major focus of the course. The first had students work in eight teams of 3-4 members to gather information on each of the eight UVa undergraduate major fields. In addition to using printed information sources, this project required each team to interview an engineering faculty member in the relevant field, as well as practicing engineers and senior engineering students.
Engineering Design (ENGR 164) Objectives
Technical Communication (TCC 101) Course Objectives
Teams gave 15-minute oral presentations on their research and wrote a detailed 20-page team report on their project. Another multi-week team project in the communication course had student teams conduct extensive research on current global topics related to technology and human development, culminating in each team giving an oral/poster presentation and a 25-page report. This project, lasting five weeks toward the end of the semester, was research-intensive and required students to apply virtually all of the skills they had learned earlier (See Shields, 1997.)
In both courses, students cooperated in all phases of the team projects from problem formulation and data gathering to report writing and oral presentations. Time commitments for several activities were fully shared between the two courses. These included two professional-level, team-based simulations of design and manufacturing, both involving model construction, led by a staff member of the Virginia Engineering Foundation trained in such activities. Also, a staff member of the Engineering School Office of Career Services used class meetings to administer and review personality and aptitude indicators including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Briggs and Myers, 1977; 1984) and the Strong Interest Indicator (Board, 1994), to conduct a workshop on informational interviewing, and describe career-oriented materials available in that Office.
EDUCATIONAL VALUE AND SUCCESS
Our evaluation of accomplishment is based on informal observations of the instructors and formal student feedback from anonymous questionnaires completed near mid-term and in the final class meetings of both courses.
Instructors
Both instructors concluded that the collaboration was beneficial to meeting professional development objectives. The range and mixture of assignments and activities between the two courses meant that essentially all of the attributes of the PD model were fulfilled appropriately for beginning students. Table 4 shows that the joint teaching allowed compensating connections to specific PD attributes between the courses.
Instructors' Subjective Assessments of PD Attributes in Their Courses
| Attribute | ENGR 164 | TCC 101 |
| Industrial Readiness
Communication Skills Individual/Team Effectiveness Career Vision Technological Capability Leadership/Cultural Competence, Ethics/Values/Service Commitment |
Strong
Moderate Strong Weak Moderate Moderate |
Weak
Strong Moderate Strong Weak Moderate |
Students - ENGR 164
Students in the design course were asked to assess how well the catalog description and course PD objectives were fulfilled. They used a five-point scale ranging from "Very Well" (1) to "Not At All" (5). Overall, students felt the design course fulfilled both expressions of goals. The aggregate mean ratings were 1.8 for design and case studies and 2.4 for the other catalog items. As shown in Table 5, the objectives met the best were technical communication and individual/team effectiveness with ratings of 1.7, while industrial readiness and leadership/culture/ethics were rated at 2.1. Technological capabilities and career vision had ratings of 2.5. Comparisons with the objectives in Table 4 indicate that the impressions made upon the students were generally consistent with the intentions of the instructors.
(Course met attributes "Very Well" = 1, "Well" = 2, "OK" = 3, "Not Very Well" = 4, "Not At All" = 5)
| Catalog Description | Paired+
(n=40) |
Others+
(n=50) |
| Open-ended Design
Case Studies Career Opportunities Individual/Team Designs Methodologies Economics, etc. Professional Responsibilities/Ethics Attribute
|
1.8
2.0 2.4 1.6 2.5 2.3 2.3
|
2.3
2.9 2.9 2.1 2.9 2.6 2.8
|
* Standard deviations of sections ranged from 0.7 to 1.1 in paired sections and from 0.9 to
1.3 in
others.
+ "Paired" sections with collaborating instructors; "Others" in sections of
unpaired TCC
101/ENGR 164 courses. Instructors of the latter course were not identifiable.
Interestingly, though the students were randomly selected, there were significant differences observed between the two sections. Their responses about some of the catalog items (design, case studies and career opportunities) and all of the attributes could be differentiated. One group was always more favorable than the other with the item mean scores differing by about the item standard deviation (which was about the same for both sections). There was also a notable difference in the quality of the work and final grades though record keeping was organized to minimize instructor awareness of individual student performance. This persisted even though the group memberships were varied for all but the last, large projects. Finally, the demographic data we obtained and analyzed after the courses were completed showed apparently significant differences in ability, personality and commitment. We are exploring whether these factors could account for the differences of attitude and accomplishment.
In addition to having students in the paired sections of the design course complete a final course evaluation, 50 students in other (unpaired) design sections completed the same questionnaire. Those results also appear in Table 5. In most areas, there appear to be beneficial differences in the paired sections with the largest ones occurring in the areas of case studies, technical communication and leadership/culture/ethics/service. However, the larger standard deviations of the responses in the unpaired sections suggest that it is possible that these differences could arise from variations in the approaches, goals and effectiveness of ENGR 164 instructors rather than from any direct benefits of collaborative PD teaching.
Finally, students also responded to questions about the importance of various activities to what they learned in ENGR 164, using a scale ranging from "Very Important" (1) to "Not Important" (4). The highest-rated components (based on mean scores) were "group projects" (1.4) "electronic information" (1.5), and "oral presentations" and "workshops" (1.8). The lowest-rated were readings (3.4) and lectures (2.8), with class activities (2.1) and individual projects (2.3) in between. Students in the design course rated team-based projects more highly than individual projects. This reflects the relative emphasis in the course, which was chosen to provide opportunities and experiences that made direct connections to multiple attributes of professional development.
Students - TCC 101
Fifty-three of the 55 students in the technical communication course completed a final course evaluation questionnaire. While the questionnaire did not ask students for direct ratings of specific PD attributes, it did ask them for detailed feedback on several aspects of the course related to PD. In particular, the student data indicate that the TCC 101 course provided rich experiences in support of three key attributes: Communication Skills (CS), Individual/Team Effectiveness (I/TE), and Career Vision (CV). One series of questions asked students to indicate how well the course had helped them improve several specific skills; responses ranged from "Very Well" (1) to "Not At All" (5). Table 6 indicates the mean ratings for each skill-improvement item, and also suggests each item's primary links to PD attributes (in parentheses).
Another set of questions asked students to indicate the relative importance of several specific class components to what they had learned in the technical communication course. Table 7 shows how students rated each component on a scale ranging from "Very Important" (1) to "Not Important" (4). As in the paired ENGR 164 sections, students in the paired TCC 101 sections rated team projects as most important; in fact, the lowest-rated item was individual writing assignments, though there were several such exercises in the course.
When asked "Would you recommend a collaborative 101/164 section pairing to next-year's incoming students?," 72% of the students answered yes (36 of 50 who responded to the question). As one student put it: "TCC helped us to write more effectively and present effectively in ENGR 164. 164 helped us to understand the technical aspects of engineering." Another student
(Course improved skills "Very Well" = 1, "Well" = 2, "OK" = 3, "Not Very Well" = 4, "Not At All" = 5)
| Specific Skill | Attribute* | Mean Rating+(n=53) |
| Describe technological objects clearly
Write effective technical papers Ability to critique/revise own writing Communicate with non-technical audiences Ability to critique/revise others' writing Give effective oral presentations Write effectively as team member Use information sources effectively Solve team project problems Work effectively as team member Relate personal strengths to major Describe engineering fields |
(CS)
(CS) (CS) (CS) (CS, I/TE) (CS, I/TE) (CS, I/TE) (CS, I/TE, CV) (I/TE) (I/TE) (CV) (CV) |
2.4
2.1 2.4 2.3 2.3 1.6 2.1 1.7 2.0 1.8 2.3 1.9 |
* CS = Communication Skills, I/TE = Individual/Team Effectiveness, CV = Career Vision
+ Standard deviations do not exceed 1.0
(Component's contribution to student learning judged as "Very Important" = 1, "Important" = 2, "Somewhat Important" = 3, "Not Important" = 4)
| Component | Attributes* | Mean Rating+ (n=53) |
| Engineering Career Options
Project
Technology & Human
Development Project
Oral Presentations Use of Electronic Information Sources |
(CV, I/TE, CS, L/CC, E/V/S, IR)
(I/TE, CS, L/CC) (I/TE, CS, L/CC)
|
2.0
2.0 1.7
1.4 1.6 |
* In order of emphasis.
CS = Communication Skills, I/TE = Individual/Team Effectiveness, CV = Career Vision, L/CC = Leadership/Cultural Competence, E/V/S = Ethics/Values/Service, IR = Industrial Readiness
+ Standard deviations do not exceed 1.0
wrote that "teamwork skills development occurred through assignments in both classes, and writing style improvements from TCC helped with ENGR 164 papers." Similarly, another commented approvingly that "oral presentation skills and group skills were used in both [courses]." Most students emphasized the benefits of having the same classmates in two courses and of having coordinated course schedules that avoided conflicting deadlines on major projects.
By far, the major student complaint focused on the workload for the paired courses. (This also occurred with the paired sections of 1995.) This was a widely held perception even among students who were positive about the advantages of pairing, but it was especially pronounced among the 28% of students who would not recommend the pairing to future students. This response was much more prevalent in one section than the other. Even so, many of these students recognized that the learning benefits were substantial despite the heavy workload: "Although you do learn a lot from these two sections", wrote one student, "the workload in each makes it very difficult to get your work done in your other three classes . . . ." Likewise, as another student noted: "Actually, TCC and ENGR hurt other courses because we spent a lot of time for both classes. However, I think we learned many things from both classes." Still another student wrote that "the amount of work between the two courses was so overwhelming. It did not help me to do better in TCC, Design, or any other course. The overall amount of writing, though I hated it, helped improve my technical writing skills immensely." Student perceptions of the relatively heavier workload in the paired sections may well have been correct, based on some indicative but not definitive data we collected at mid-semester. Those data suggested that students in the paired sections of TCC 101 and ENGR 164 were inclined to rate their workloads as more time-consuming than students enrolled in unpaired sections of those courses. In any case, students obviously believed the workloads were greater. This may have negatively influenced the course evaluations, though we believe that the results can still be considered quite satisfactory.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
Our experience suggests that first-semester engineering can be positively influenced with collaborative implementation of a carefully articulated PD vision and framework. The objective in pairing our sections was to provide students with a "compleat" professional development experience; their formal evaluations of the courses confirm that this was largely accomplished. Even most of the students who would not recommend paired sections to future incoming students (because of the heavy workload) agreed with the value obtained. While many engineering educators believe (perhaps somewhat correctly) that first-year students lack the intellectual maturity and personal autonomy needed for optimal success in a rigorous curriculum, our experience is encouraging: many of our students in both sections seemed to rise to the challenge. In particular, the pairing of technical design and technical communication seems to provide a genuine synergy to reinforce and complement a shared set of PD goals. Further, most students said that they also benefited from the social integration of the two courses: stronger interpersonal ties and other aspects that supported cross-course teamings, such as the predictability and convenience of coordinating team meetings when meeting classmates twice a day.
We instructors easily reached two major conclusions. First, our collaboration worked because of 1) a shared vision of PD and its importance and 2) our willingness to and enjoyment of sustaining it by frequent interactions for planning and execution throughout the semester. Our sense is that both of these ingredients are not only desirable but essential. It did help that we had participated in developing the shared PD vision as it emerged over months of intensive discussion. We were more able to apply a systematic model in our sections than might someone who came in "cold."
Second, in contrast to the PD framework that stimulated and guided our collaboration, we had no formal model for any collaborative teaching - much less for our cross-disciplinary connection . Our experience might be considered unusually fortunate and fortuitous. It may even be that at this point educators know more about collaborative (or cooperative) learning than about collaborative (cooperative) teaching. It is likely that we all will need to pay more attention to formulating the structure and activities of collaborating teachers if these innovations are to become more frequent and productive.
The final issue is what's next for our students. There are very few ways in which the rest of our undergraduate curriculum builds on this kind of first semester. Focus groups of students who met some months after the first year's collaborations mentioned this explicitly (Pfaffenberger, et al. 1996). Getting widespread commitment to implementing the PD vision will require considerable time and effort by faculty and a variety of administrative support mechanisms. And even then, implementation at other levels will probably require exceptionally creative and adaptive teaching (Woods and Wood, 1996).
Acknowledgments: The authors are grateful to many UVa colleagues, especially T. C. Scott, Edmund P. Russell, Richard D. Jacques, Kristin A. Gildersleeve, William J. Thurneck, and C. J. Livesay for their involvement this year's paired sections of TCC 101 and ENGR 164.
REFERENCES
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Briggs, K.C., and I. Briggs Myers, 1977. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Form G Booklet; 1984. MBTI Form G Profile Report. Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto, CA.
Peterson, G.D., 1995. ABET Engineering Criteria 2000. Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc., Baltimore, MD.
Pfaffenberger, B., J. P. O'Connell, S. Carlson, T. C. Scott, and M. A. Shields, 1996. Teaching professional development in the first-year writing course. ASEE Annual Conference, Session 2653, Washington, DC, June.
Shields, M.A., 1997. Enhancing cross-cultural understanding among engineering students: The Technology and Human Development Project. ASEE Annual Conference, Session 2660, Milwaukee, June.
Shields, M.A., and J.P. O'Connell, 1997 Professional development and collaborative teaching in an undergraduate engineering curriculum: A case study from the University of Virginia. ASEE Annual Conference, Session 3253, Milwaukee, June.
Woods, D. R., and P. E. Wood, 1996. The future of engineering education: A Canadian perspective. Presented to the New Approaches to Undergraduate Education VIII Conference, Kingston, ON, July 23-27.