A Continual Improvement Process for Teaching Leadership and Innovation Within a Community of Practice

Innovation, teamwork, leadership, lifelong learning, and sustainable design are key teaching and learning deliverables for capstone design courses and are evaluated as graduate attribute outcomes integral to the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) evaluation processes. Continual course improvement processes require reflection on the success of learning activities, the tools used for teaching, and alignment of learning outcomes, activities, and assessment. Peer evaluation and feedback tools can encourage student learning and leadership development. The method of data collection, the type of feedback and the contextual validity of the feedback may impact students’ development of useful team behaviours and personal strategies for working in team environments. Mixed method successive case study analysis provides insights enabling targeted improvements to learning activities, outcomes, assessment and the student and instructor course experiences. The proposed course level continual improvement process employs a sequential case study method with the intent of identifying improvement actions related to learning efficacy, course experience, and improved graduate attribute performance outcomes. Case study data generation and assessment tools include student self-evaluations, peer and team evaluation and feedback tools, instructor evaluations, observations and reflections, and assessment of student results. These tools provide data for both qualitative and quantitative assessments for each course iteration and inform ongoing course and aligned learning activity development. A community of practice (COP) fulfills the stakeholder engagement criterion (CEAB requirement) for a continual improvement process. At a major Canadian university, instructors with a diverse mix of industrial and academic experience teach chemical process design as a team. The instructors work in close collaboration with practicing professional engineers including industrial technical specialists, entrepreneurs, and academic colleagues with an industrial focus, to prepare unique process design projects and to advise student teams. This community of practice offers students a window on engineering design practice, leadership, and innovation as they transition to the professional community. This paper explores the role of this community of practice in the continual improvement process supporting enhanced achievement of CEAB graduate attributes including student, team and leadership development.