U Michigan Tool Helps Students Learn How to Work in Teams
Three engineering faculty members at the University of Michigan — all female — who have co-taught an Introduction to Engineering course have come up with a new tool at the institution to help students learn how to work in teams. The faculty team pursued the new solution as a replacement for doing weekly check-ins with students. That original approach, described in a video about the project, was “awesome and terrible,” according to Robin Fowler, lecturer in technical communication and research scientist in Engineering Education Research. It used a mix of peer assessment, reading and reflections to develop an understanding of the effectiveness of the teams in which students worked. However, the workload for the faculty was staggering, she noted. “It meant I was going home and reading 60 reflections on some topic [every week].”
