Coaching Engineering Design Teams

At an increasing rate, teams are becoming the primary unit of performance in industrial organizations. 1 In line with this trend, representatives from industry have requested, and engineering educators have responded, that graduating seniors in engineering need to have a greater ability to work in teams 2, 3. Although the University of Tennessee, Knoxville provides a team based design experience throughout the senior year, faculty who have taught these classes have experienced recurring problems with teamwork 4. With the goal of improving the teamwork skills within these senior design teams, a program has been developed between the College of Engineering and the Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology Unit (CECP) of the College of Education.