Workshop - effective practices for team formation and faculty involvement in capstone design courses

Abstract

This workshop will focus on two critical and inter-related issues in capstone design projects - project formation and faculty involvement. Project formation is a notoriously difficult process in any environment. Teams must be formed, project concepts identified, a project selected, specifications and goals determined, and implementation plans developed. Each of the preceding elements is critical to achieving success and requires a good level of understanding by both the students and faculty involved. Students often have little experience in this process and are challenged by its ambiguity and fluidity. Furthermore, faculty are not typically prepared by their academic training to understand or supervise capstone projects, and likewise find it challenging. This presents many barriers to effective and consistent project advising. When multiple faculty members advise projects there need to be consistent expectations and assessment methods. The inclusion of industrial sponsors and advisors adds another level of complexity, as their expectations are often different from those of the institution.