Teaching design through international teams

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Teaching design through international teams

• Why do it?
• Case study 1 Operations Management
• Overview
• Teaching module that emerged
• Closing remarks
• Case study 2 Global Design
• Overview
• Findings
• Closing remarks
• Summary

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Why do it?

• To reflect how operations management and design
  is carried out in practice
• To broaden student experience
• To learn from others

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Two case studies

• Operations management (Peter)
• Penultimate honours year students
• With Iowa State University, USA
• Haggis production and sales
• learning on behaviour
• Global design (Hilary)
• Undergraduate 5th year students (some from ops
  mgt!)
• With Stanford University and Olin College, USA
• Design of coffee cup holder
• learning on nature management of distributed
  design

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What is haggis?
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Operations management global teams

• To understand practice of operations management
• Sharing, working across time zones, rarely
  meeting, etc.
• Collaborators
• Iowa State ( Mexico China)
• Initiated by Iowa State to introduce global
  teaching
• Teaching in parallel
• Students independently taught
• Collaboration on assignment
• 30 teams of 4 students
• 6 weeks student activity (3 weeks intense)
• 25 of module (12 modules/year)
• Resources
• Problem Solving Learning Portal
• Case data (reasonably complete!)

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The model that emerged
BALL, P.D., GRIERSON, H., MIN, J., JACKMAN, J.K.
PATTERSON, P. Working on an assignment with
people you'll never meet! Case study on learning
operations management in international teams,
International Journal of Engineering Education,
Vol. 23, No. 2.
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Case study 1 closing remarks

• Students
• Initially exciting
• Hard work managing
• Rewarding outcome
• Staff
• Fun
• Time consuming to set up first time
• Need to follow the same rules given to students!!

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Case study 2 Global Design

• To understand practice of distributed design
• nature management of distributed design and how
  technology can support this
• prepare students with the knowledge, skills and
  experience to become competent members of global
  design teams

• Collaborators
• Stanford University, CA and Olin College, MA, USA
• DIDET Project funded by JISC/NSF
• Undergraduate 5th PDE students at Strathclyde
  Masters PhD students at Stanford Undergraduate
  students at Olin College

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Case study 2 Global Design

• Teaching
• Students taught independently at each institution
  
• 8 weeks 3 weeks lectures/tutorials/case studies
  3 weeks intense project 2 weeks reflection
• 10 credit class at Strathclyde (120credits/year)
• Collaboration on project design of coffee cup
  holder
• 6 teams of 4 - 6 students (UK/Stanford and
  UK/Olin)
• Assessment reflective reports and examination
  based on project experience
• Evaluation reflective session, confidence logs,
  final design presentation, staff feedback

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Case study 2 Global Design

• Resources
• 1 academic, 1 researcher 1 learning support
  staff
• Digital Design Laboratory
• Communication, Collaboration Information
  Storing technologies
• but free to chose their own.
• Class/project resources on Learning Environment
• Team homepages using wiki technology
• Access to digital library containing project
  resources

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Findings

• Teaching and Learning
• Confidence logs showed students development
• Relating theory to practice was positive
• New people and experience of different design
  methods and approaches
• More time for team bonding technologies and
  feedback
• Different expectations and assessment at each
  institutions caused issues

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Findings

• Collaboration
• Smaller teams of equal numbers of UK/USA students
  were more successful
• Strathclyde-Olin collaboration was more
  successful than Strathclyde-Stanford
  collaboration
• Time difference was challenging
• VC supported across-team collaborative work most
  successfully
• High percentage of work outside these sessions
  were across local sides of teams

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Findings

• Tools and Technologies
• More tutorial time on tools and technologies
• Students found other easier tools e.g.
  Googledocs, SocialText, Box.Net, Campfire, Flickr
• Difficult to locate information in several places
  
• PolyCom VC was preferred method of collaborative
  working
• Access to video conferencing equipment at
  Strathclyde was sometimes problematic

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Case study 2 closing remarks

• Positive experience for students and staff
• Exchange educational ideas, share resources and
  experience distributed design working
• Valuable preparation for future employment
• High maintenance but reusable

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Teaching and Learning Benefits students

• International Experience
• Different cultures and approaches to work,
  formality/informality
• Better appreciation of language (terminology)
• Exposure to different design methods
• Getting students used to working in wider
  networks
• Managing Work/Planning
• Experience of working at distance - across
  different time zones, with unfamiliar
  people/disciplines
• Timely exchange of information and work
• Management of project or assignment resources in
  a virtual space
• Getting students to understand how to work with
  others who may have different expectations and
  priorities

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Teaching and Learning Benefits students

• Tools and Technologies
• Greater understanding of the variety and power of
  IT to support project work and communication
• Personal Development
• Practical experience of international teamwork
• Prepare students to become competent members of
  global design teams future employment

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Teaching Benefits staff

• Teaching Practice
• Greater depth of understanding of how others
  teach by working with them closely (leading to
  new ways of teaching)
• Opportunity to teach "in context"
  practically
• ..opportunity to do something new and
  different, which in
• 
  turn motivated the students.

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Further information

• Peter
• p.d.ball_at_cranfield.ac.uk
• Peter Hilarys paper on team working in
  International Journal of Engineering Education,
  Vol. 23, No. 2.
• Hilary
• h.j.grierson_at_strath.ac.uk
• JISC/NSF DIDET project
• www.dmem.strath.ac.uk/didet
• LauLima is downloadable from website