Preparing Capstone Design Instructors and Project Mentors to Deal with Difficult Students and Problem Teams

Capstone project mentors have a responsibility to facilitate engineering student development toward professional practice. Due to the open-ended nature of the design problems addressed, the frequent use of a team-structure to complete capstone design projects, and the coupling of individual student grades with team outcomes, capstone instructors may be faced with different student/team management challenges than their colleagues who teach traditional lecture-based courses. It is not uncommon for capstone design course instructors, program directors, and team mentors to get involved in resolving team conflicts, counseling team leaders in handling nonproductive team members, and performing damage control on dysfunctional teams. A workshop and supporting materials was developed in response to a perceived need amongst capstone instructors for a set of protocols and tools to address dysfunctional design team behaviors. The workshop, and a rubric to help identify and act upon problematic capstone design student and team behaviors, was designed to prepare new and veteran instructors to effectively respond to challenging student and problem team situations. The discussion includes implications for engaging various campus counseling and intervention resources, tools available to empower faculty and students to recognize and respond appropriately to some common problem situations, and the creation and delivery of a capstone design instructor workshop for the 2014 Capstone Design Conference.