Teamwork For A Quality Education: Low Cost, E Ective Educational Reform Through A Department Wide Competition Of Teams

Large-scale reform has come to engineering education once again, but many of the eeorts being explored require massive reorganization of coursework, new working arrangements , or expensive materials and technology. Whether or not such costly reform will scale up beyond the prototype stage is an important question, and in this paper, a low-cost approach toward systemic reform called Teamwork for a Qualtity Education (TQE) is described as an alternative to more expensive eeorts. TQE combines ideas from total quality management and lessons learned in one of the country's premier senior-design courses at the University of Illinois to introduce teamwork and design across the curriculum enlivened by a spirited, yet friendly competition among teams. The paper discusses the principles, projects, and rules of the competition and presents results from two consecutive pilot semesters (Spring and Fall 1997). Results are promising , and the approach should be of interest to departments interested in eeective reform without the luxury of large temporary or permanent budget increases.