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，STEM新员工的团队合作和沟通技巧与科学专业学生在第一份工作中所具备的技术技能同等重要，甚至更重要。在繁重的技术课程中，很少有STEM专业有空间来介绍这些技能。为了填补这一空白，该项目创建并评估了一种跨越学生四年教育的新学术模式，将这些概念引入通识教育课程，并允许在他们的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他们的技能，这些项目既包括专业所需的科学课程，也包括独立研究。该项目进一步探索如何通过与外部大学合作、国家研讨会和在同行评议期刊上发表文章，将这种模式转移到其他机构。随着这种新的学术模式的整合，STEM学生更具竞争力，并为未来劳动力中高需求的跨学科合作做好更好的准备。该项目建立了一个全校范围的模式，提供终身跨专业技能的全面培训、实践和评估，以解决STEM劳动力中的这一差距。为了满足这一需求，项目团队通过创建一个新的四年制大学范围的课程模式来改变STEM教育，其中包括有效的团队合作和沟通辅修课程，让学生学习、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，在专业内外的多个课程中教授和评估。该模式通过利用由适当的教师专家教授的通识课程，避免增加课程作业，这些课程明确地将跨专业技能的学科特定理论与学生在科学学科中的应用联系起来。通过跨学科的研究问题，嵌入在专业课程中，STEM学生参与真正的团队合作，学习如何不断评估他们的个人贡献和团队互动的质量，为他们将这些技能转化为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.