(499g) Capstone Design Team Dynamics in Chemical Engineering at a Hispanic-Serving Institution

Teamwork is an essential part of the capstone design course in engineering. The capstone course is a logical place for gaining extensive experience in a team environment through conduct of the senior design project. Teamwork skills are also crucial for students to develop when they are about to enter their engineering career. Many students at this institution indicate their team experiences prior to the capstone course have been limited and of short duration.

In the capstone design two-course sequence, the students conduct three short team-based projects in the fall semester, and then complete their senior design project in one semester-long project in the spring semester. In the fall semester projects, at least two different methods are used for team member selection, so that the students experience at least one project where they work with team members not of their choice, and perhaps even those students whom they do not know. In the spring semester, students are allowed to form their own teams and usually end up working with others that are friends or study partners. This personal familiarity amongst team members engenders a quick start to their project efforts.

Engineering teamwork experiences are most successful when team members recognize each other’s strengths and weaknesses, self-assign tasks in accordance with those characteristics, and step in to help when one person indicates they are having difficulty in completing an effort. The instructor holds weekly meetings with each design group outside regularly-scheduled class time. During these meetings, he questions students on their project efforts and, from this, is able to obtain an indication of who is contributing regularly and who may not be contributing their fair share. Guidance is then given to the students to encourage all members to participate consistently throughout the project term. The individual member contributions to the group are also evident during group oral presentations (four held in the spring semester) and in group member contribution forms submitted twice with deliverables at the middle and end of the semester. The greatest concern is for students who appear to be loners and contribute little or contribute only in an isolated manner. The instructor uses these observations to encourage groups and individual members to participate more fully to ensure that their design project grade does not suffer. However, in some instances, the loner behavior is not corrected and frustration between group members is apparent towards the end of the project. The lone group member scenario is expected to be more prevalent in the current corona virus environment, when face-to-face group meetings are not occurring and most students are participating virtually from home. Numerous groups have recently indicated that the corona virus conditions are a challenge to their completion of group objectives.