1. Distant yet Near: Promoting Interdisciplinary Learning in Significantly Diverse Teams through Socially Responsible Projects
- Author
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Monica Adya, Bryan Temple, and Donald M. Hepburn
- Subjects
Cooperative learning ,Teamwork ,Knowledge management ,Higher education ,Product design ,business.industry ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Public relations ,Education ,Engineering education ,Situated ,ComputingMilieux_COMPUTERSANDEDUCATION ,Business, Management and Accounting (miscellaneous) ,Decision Sciences (miscellaneous) ,Sociology ,Project management ,business ,Social responsibility ,media_common - Abstract
With global specialization of work units within organizations, interdisciplinary work practices comprised of collaborative efforts between technical and business teams are increasingly common in today's workplace. While higher education has responded by creating opportunities for remote teams to learn from collaborative work, occasions for interaction between remotely situated significantly diverse teams such as business and engineering are few. This study describes a pedagogical offering between U.S.-based business teams and U.K.-based engineering teams that delivers such an experience around mutually dependent, socially responsible projects. Results from student surveys and reflections confirm that the pedagogical design is able to generate perceived interdependence between these diverse teams. Student responses to surveys also suggest that the collaboration is effective in raising student confidence in interdisciplinary and remote team work among students. The study concludes with recommendations for transferability and actualization of interdisciplinary collaboration.
- Published
- 2015