AC 2007-983: INTEGRATING THE DEVELOPMENT OF TEAMWORK, DIVERSITY, LEADERSHIP, AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS INTO A CAPSTONE DESIGN COURSE

The development of teamwork, diversity, leadership, and communications (TDLC) skills in our professional domain is critical to our engineering education program and profession. We solve problems in teams which are diverse, require leadership, and must communicate internally and externally to achieve their team goals. The challenge of developing these skills in the Civil and Environmental Engineering program at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, was addressed through the development of a series of workshops embedded within the senior capstone course. The development of these active learning workshops from traditional knowledge based lectures provided an insight into the student’s cognitive knowledge level and appreciation for the TDLC skills. The students have a greater base of knowledge and experience in the TDLC skills than initially perceived, which resulted in the development of a Learn-Practice-Assess model. The intent of the model is to leverage the student’s knowledge and experience, and develop life-long learning skills. A set of workshops based around the Learn-Practice-Assess model to develop TDLC skills is offered as an effective program to build upon the student’s higher cognitive level, integrate across the TDLC skills, and provide a contextual application in the capstone design course and beyond.