The Role Of Virtual Student Design Teams In Engineering Education For The “New Workplace”

The “new workplace” for engineering is increasingly at the interface of three environments: the Virtual environment, in which designs can be created and explored, with activities that range from interaction via the Internet to 3-D visualization and immersion in alternative designs of engineered systems; the Product Realization environment, in which physical embodiments of designs can be produced and evaluated; and the Human environment, in which people work together in face-to-face and virtual teams, the latter often internationally dispersed, to design and implement products and processes. Functioning at the interface of these environments is a challenge that must be met by engineering graduates. In this paper we primarily focus on the virtual team issues as they relate to pedagogy to prepare students to function on design teams in the “new workplace” and also show how Stevens is moving to address the new paradigm.