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WORKING IN CROSS-DISCIPLINARY TEAMS

Reflection on the Development of Workplace Skills in your students:

STEM professionals are often expected to work in cross-functional teams, which requires teamwork, active listening, empathy, and communication across difference (such as across different technical specialties or across race/ethnicity/gender differences). This project aimed to promote students' sense of self-efficacy in developing these four skills by reading about each skill's components, intentionally practicing them, and spending time reflecting on the experience.

My cross-listed STEM Leadership, Ethics, and Social Change (ENGR/NSM 193) course is unique in that it draws students from across the STEM disciplines (and sometimes non-STEM disciplines). Capitalizing on the variety of STEM majors in the class, I kept the class at 24 students so I could put them into 6 cross-disciplinary four-person teams for the semester. On the second day of class, I went over a teamwork rubric I developed that is adapted from the American Association of Colleges and Universities' VALUE rubric on teamwork and asked students to individually self-assess their abilities according to the rubric on a pre-survey. I also asked them to self-assess whether they believed they had the knowledge, skills, and attitudes for the various components of the empathy, listening, and communication across difference skills I planned to teach. (I asked them about their beliefs in their abilities because my intention is to improve their self-efficacy. I knew we would not have time to master or even repeat any of these practices. I also intentionally did not put any grade on this work except for participation.)

Many class sessions took place in teams. The teams began by engaging in listening practices. Then I asked each team to develop a class resource on a particular Western or non-Western ethical theory and its decision procedure for reference as they wrote Project 1. As we read the leadership text later in the semester, students created resources and informed each other based on the chapters they'd read. They were also asked to reflect on their team dynamics in writing. Often, I would engage them in a writing prompt before the teamwork, so they could be mindful and intentional about what they were trying to do with the team that day. Over the course of the class, these teams practiced and reflected on two different listening skills (sayback and listening for feelings and values), practiced the empathy skillset, explained a technical subject to a nonspecialist, and explained nontechnical information to one another. Reflective work was completed as often as possible right after the teamwork session.

I am planning to administer a final post-survey on the last day of class, when I will also make their own pre-survey available to the students so they can see their own progress, if any. That information is not available yet. But I asked for volunteers to respond with some in-class writing about their impressions of the classwork on these four skills for this portfolio. Nine students responded. Several respondents wrote that though they have been subconsciously aware of these skills, the class made them actively think about them. Others said that they were already aware and well-practiced at these skills. One student particularly appreciated the work on empathy because they struggled with it. A few students explained that their teamwork already included cross-cultural communication because the team members came from very different cultural backgrounds. I am especially proud of the student who wrote that they "have implemented more active listening in my team meetings for my senior project" and am wondering how I can support the student who said "implementing these skills at work has been a lot harder." While I can't say that their self-efficacy or skill development has improved because of this intervention (yet), I am proud that they think enough of the work we did together to transfer that knowledge to other parts of their lives. To me, that's already a win.

**Workplace Skills Development**

Teamwork Rubric, adapted from AACU VALUE Teamwork Rubric, Page 1	Teamwork Rubric, adapted from AACU VALUE Teamwork Rubric, Page 2

**Faculty Bio**

	I am a lecturer in the Department of Civil Engineering, for which I teach two classes, STEM Leadership, Ethics, and Social Change (ENGR/NSM 193) and Civil Engineering Professional Writing (CE 200). I earned my PhD in English/Rhetoric and Composition at University of Nebraska-Lincoln and was a tenured associate professor of communication at an engineering college in Michigan before I resigned because of health issues. My own scholarly areas are communication across difference and listening. I am also a poet and editor. More about both at joyarbor.com.

STEM4Equity: US Dept. of Education STEMHSI P031C210012
*Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sacramento State.