Assessing Student Design Team Performance In A Learning Community Of University Freshmen And High School Students

This paper describes methods used to assess teamwork effectiveness. The assessment methods were developed to evaluate the overall success of the project itself, the students’ perception of the experience, and how much the students actually learned. The assessment methods include both subjective measures, such as student surveys, (namely, communications methods effectiveness survey, team communication survey, short-term surveys, team peer evaluation forms), and objective measures, such as evaluation of email communication trail and net-meeting communication notes, as well as achieving design and communication milestones. The teams are evaluated in terms of the following categories, defined by the TIDEE “Design Team Readiness Assessment”. These include: team’s purpose, leadership, accountability, climate, productivity, resources, and communication. The paper links these categories with the abovementioned assessment methods to establish the effectiveness of the teams in each category. Teams are assessed at least twice each term and the results are used as guidance for improvement. This paper also presents the results obtained by applying this teamwork assessment method to a learning community of students in a geographically isolated locations and with different technical backgrounds. The teams in the learning community are comprised of four students from a university freshman design course, and three students from a high school technology course. The goal of the learning community is to design, build, and test an original design. The communication between two sets of students in a team is achieved via net-meetings and emails. The paper presents the results of team assessment completed for two freshman design courses at Seattle University and two Central Kitsap High School Technology Courses.