Facilitating Multidisciplinary Teams In A Service Learning Environment
- Conference
- Location
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Honolulu, Hawaii
- Publication Date
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June 24, 2007
- Start Date
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June 24, 2007
- End Date
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June 27, 2007
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Multidisciplinary Engineering
- Page Count
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12
- Page Numbers
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12.728.1 - 12.728.12
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--2551
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/2551
- Download Count
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3163
Paper Authors
Gregory Bucks Purdue University
GREGORY W. BUCKS is a PhD student in the department of Engineering Education at Purdue University. He received his BSEE from the Pennsylvania State University and his MSECE from Purdue University. He is currently the head teaching assistant for the EPICS Program at Purdue University.
William Oakes
Purdue University
orcid.org/0000-0002-6183-045X
WILLIAM C. OAKES is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Purdue University and the Interim-Director of the EPICS Program. He is a co-recipient of the 2005 National Academy of Engineering’s Bernard M. Gordon Prize and the 2004 NSPE Engineering Education Excellence Award. He is a past-chair of the ASEE IL/IN Section, and board member of Freshman Programs and Educational Research Methods Divisions.
Carla Zoltowski Purdue University
CARLA B. ZOLTOWSKI is Education Administrator of the EPICS Program at Purdue
University. She received her BSEE and MSEE from Purdue University, and is currently pursuing her PhD in Engineering Education at Purdue. She has served as a lecturer in Purdue’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Frank DeRego Purdue University
FRANK R. DE REGO, JR. is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of
Sociology and Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts at Purdue
University. His research interests focus on issues of Race/Ethnicity,
Religion, and Complex Organizations. He also holds the Master of Arts
degree in Religious Studies from the Catholic University of Louvain,
Belgium. He has worked with the EPICS program as EPICS National
Coordinator and as the teaching assistant in charge of developing
materials on ethics and the social context of engineering for the
program.
Silvia Mah University of California-San Diego
Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract
Facilitating Multidisciplinary Teams in a Service-Learning Environment
Abstract
Today’s engineers have to be able to work with colleagues of different backgrounds, both from different engineering fields as well as those from fields outside engineering. To better prepare graduates for this environment, universities and colleges are placing an ever increasing emphasis on interdisciplinary learning. The rise of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary engineering programs at many universities illustrates this trend. However, there are many obstacles to effectively functioning on multidisciplinary teams. Most disciplines have specific languages that may make collaboration difficult. Disciplines also tend to have unique methods or tools for designing that may be contradictory. The EPICS program at Purdue University is a service- learning program that is highly multidisciplinary, and faces many of these issues. In an attempt to address these issues, the program has adopted several strategies. Those strategies, which are discussed in this paper, are the incorporation of multidisciplinary leadership in the use of advisors and teaching assistants from various disciplines, the use of inclusive language in the course outcomes, and the use of National Instruments LabVIEW to provide a common technical medium in which students can work.
Need for Multidisciplinary Teams
In their report The Engineer of 2020[1], the National Academy of Engineering highlighted thirteen different attributes that an engineer in the year 2020 will need to be effective. One of the driving factors in the development of these attributes is that “the population of individuals who are involved with or affected by technology…will be increasingly diverse and multidisciplinary.” This highlights one of the biggest pushes in recent years, which is for engineers who are able to function effectively on multidisciplinary teams.
Often in engineering, when the term multidisciplinary is used, it refers to different branches of engineering. A multidisciplinary team might have electrical, mechanical and industrial engineers on it. However, when students become practicing engineers, they will no longer be working solely with other engineers. Quite often, they will need to work with peers without a technical background. For instance, their coworkers may have a business or management degree. The people designing the casing or packaging may have degrees in the arts. Psychologists may help with the design of the user interface, and advertising and marketing specialists will introduce the product to the world. Engineers will need to be able to effectively work with and communicate with people from a wide variety of backgrounds, not only those with engineering backgrounds.
The need to train engineers to be able to function on multidisciplinary teams has been recognized by both industry and academia. The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) lists “an ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams” as one of its outcomes that engineering students must meet[2].
Bucks, G., & Oakes, W., & Zoltowski, C., & DeRego, F., & Mah, S. (2007, June), Facilitating Multidisciplinary Teams In A Service Learning Environment Paper presented at 2007 Annual Conference & Exposition, Honolulu, Hawaii. 10.18260/1-2--2551
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