Better Preparing STEM Undergraduates for Employment: An Interdisciplinary, Problem-based Approach for Teaching and Assessing Teamwork and Interpersonal Skills

90%的雇主认为，新招聘的STEM员工的团队合作和沟通技能与理科专业学生为第一份工作带来的技术技能同等重要，甚至更重要。很少有STEM专业的学生在技术负担过重的课程中有空间介绍这些技能。为了填补这一空白，该项目创建并评估了一种新的学术模式，该模式跨越了学生的四年教育，在普通教育课程中引入了概念，并允许在其科学课程中丰富这些技能的应用、实践和评估。心理学、社会科学和传播学课程介绍了良好团队合作所需的理论、实践和自我评估技能。学生通过以团队为基础的跨学科研究项目来提高和反思自己的技能，既包括他们所在专业所需的科学课程，也包括通过独立研究。该项目还探讨了如何通过与外部大学合作、举办国家讲习班和在同行评议的期刊上发表文章，将这一模式推广到其他机构。随着这一新的学术模式的整合，STEM学生更具竞争力，更好地为未来劳动力需求高的跨学科合作做好准备。该项目构建了一个大学范围内的模式，提供全面的培训、实践和终身跨专业技能评估，以弥补STEM劳动力的这一缺口。为了满足这一需求，项目团队通过创建新的四年制大学课程模式来改变STEM教育，包括有效的团队合作和辅修通信，允许学生学习、应用和反思他们的跨专业技能。这些关键技能及其背后的理论，在学生的整个教育过程中，包括专业内外的多门课程，都得到了传授和评估。该模式避免了通过利用由适当的教师专家教授的文科课程来增加课程作业，这些课程明确地将特定学科的跨专业技能理论与学生的科学学科的使用联系起来。通过嵌入专业内课程的跨学科研究问题，STEM学生参与真正的团队合作，学习如何不断评估他们个人的贡献和团队互动的质量，为他们将这些技能传授给STEM劳动力做好准备。

Ninety percent of employers identify teamwork and communications skills of new STEM hires as equally or more important than the technical skills science majors bring to their first job. Few STEM majors have room in their technically heavy course load to introduce these skills. To fill this gap, this project creates and assesses a new academic model that spans across a student's four-year education, introducing the concepts in general education courses and allowing for an enriched application, practice and evaluation of these skills in their science courses. Psychology, social science and communication courses introduce the theory, practice and self-assessment of skills required for good teamwork. Students enhance and reflect on their skills through team-based interdisciplinary research projects, both in science courses required for their majors and through independent research. The project further explores how this model can be transferred to other institutions through collaboration with external universities, national workshops and publication in peer-reviewed journals. With the integration of this new academic model, STEM students are more competitive and better prepared for the interdisciplinary collaborations in high demand in the workforce of the future.The project builds a university-wide model that provides comprehensive training, practice and evaluation of lifelong interprofessional skills to address this gap in the STEM workforce. To meet this need, the project team transforms STEM education by creating a new four-year university-wide curricular model, including an Effective Teamwork and Communications minor, allowing students to learn, apply, and reflect on their interprofessional skills. These critical skills, and the theories behind them, are taught and assessed throughout students' education, in multiple courses, both in and out of their majors. The model avoids adding coursework by utilizing liberal studies courses, taught by appropriate faculty experts, which explicitly link the discipline specific theories of interprofessional skills to their use in a student's scientific discipline. Through interdisciplinary research problems, embedded in in-major courses, STEM students engage in genuine teamwork, learning how to continually assess their individual contributions and the quality of team interactions, preparing them to transfer these skills to the STEM workforce.