One of my favorite aspects of this course is not only getting to learn about how to do things, but also getting to learn how to teach things.  This is definitely the case with coaching the freshmen on their oral reports.  As a junior mechanical engineer, my experience in giving oral reports is still quite limited.  Naturally, before this course, I never had an opportunity to practice coaching others on their oral report skills.  But this is exactly the situation we were in for class on Tuesday.

Dr. Tracy Volz helped us to develop these skills.  We watched some example senior design presentations to practice watching for different aspects and writing careful notes of what was important.  We also role played giving feedback on writing samples to make sure we had a good balance of encouragement and constructive criticism.  One thing I discovered was that I tend to be a little too up-front with my observations, often leading to discouragement on the part of the recipient.  This was something I was careful to avoid in giving feedback to the Forearm Group on Tuesday.

Listening to the Forearm Group present, I was very impressed by how well prepared they were.  But no matter how good their presentation was, I still was able to think of many things to comment on.  It was a challenge to be methodical in sharing what I thought was important while also being careful to present only as much as would be beneficial for their team to improve their presentation.  Over all, I felt good about the encouragement I was able to give the team, and was thrilled by how receptive the team was.  It is empowering to step into such a leadership role in this class and see the students listen so carefully to the things I say!

I think if I knew how to be an affective leader, I could likely sell a lot of books, and make a lot of money as a speaker. However, that is one of the greatest parts of the ENGI 316 course, that we are not only teaching but also learning leadership. We all came into the course with the preconceived notion that we were selected for our leadership capabilities, and thus set out to lead the freshman into greatness on their projects. This is a great set up for a lesson in humility. It’s easy to say that my shortcomings as a leader have been because the group isn’t responding to my style of leadership. However, learning to be a capable of multiple styles of leadership will make me a better leader in the future. Therefore, I am finding myself stretched to explore other styles, a position fitting for the mission of RCEL.

Learning how to be an affective leader has come largely from the Shriner’s AL’s interaction with the freshman teams. I can mainly attest to my own interaction; but, I have found that I approach leadership in a lead from behind method. I try to direct the team, through veiled comments such that at the end they feel they have arrived all on their own, when in reality I was guiding all along. However, with one of our groups, it has become evident that this is not affective. For example, the groups were encouraged to designate a facilitator for the day. However, the facilitator for this one group did not adequately insure that everyone’s voice was being heard. So, I stepped in and asked for the opinions of different group members throughout the course of the meeting. The result was that I modeled what a facilitator should do, but the group (and especially the acting facilitator of the group) learned nothing. In discussing the situation with our faculty mentors, I learned that in that situation I needed to explicitly say that I was modeling the position of facilitator. It is difficult for me to approach leadership so explicitly. However, it is also important that we all learn how to lead in different ways and different situations.

The Wheelchair Team, "AGP - Arthrogryposis Going Places" at a social activity

Teamwork is hard work.  On the teams I’ve experienced, some teams seem to instantly connect, ready to work together effectively and efficiently.  Other teams take a while to warm up to each other.  And other teams just don’t seem to work at all.  Sometimes, the best solution I’ve had for a dysfunctional team is to try to do parts myself, and then push the rest onto other people in the group.  But for design projects, teamwork is absolutely essential.  Not only does having people to work with allow greater productivity, it also allows better ideas, wider outlooks, and a variety of skill sets.

So how do we cultivate good teams?  It’s so easy just to think about the challenging team situations we’ve been on.  How could any of us Apprentice Leaders know how to work perfectly with a team?  How could we even claim to have figured it out?  For the most part, teamwork is just something that happens.  In my experience on teams, I mostly just think about myself and the idea we are all working towards.  Other people come into play when they can help make my life better or bring us closer to the goal.  So to sit with these teams of students, and not think about ourselves, or even necessarily about the projects, but just about shear teamwork and what healthy teamwork looks like, it can be enlightening.  Suddenly all my tendencies to dominate groups I’m in become obviously inappropriate.  Suddenly my greatest desire is to see each member contribute in some way and feel “enfranchised.”  If I see one student taking complete control, I see that student as an enemy to the good of the team.

Not only is this kind of meta-analysis challenging, it’s also hard to know how fruitful it is.  Once I’ve arrived at some level of understanding, how can I actually do something to push a team in the right direction to grow as a team?  Or how do I know when a team has “arrived?”

One thing we AL’s did to try and build team connectedness was throw a social for one of the teams.  We set a rule: no talking about the project for the duration of the social event.  Instead, we hung out, played pool, drew pictures, and learned some about each other.  I thought everything was perfect, until I realized that the same dynamics that bothered me in the classroom were also present in this social interaction.  Once having put on these group-interaction analytical goggles, could I never take them off?

And even though I don’t know what I’m doing, it is encouraging to see all the teams moving closer together.  Maybe the point of this isn’t to “arrive” anywhere, but to leave where we used to be?

ENGI 120 is a new engineering design class for freshmen students. They will solve problems from Shriner’s hospital and the Rice University campus with assistance from Dr. Saterbak, Dr. Embree, Dr. Griffin, and the Apprentice Leaders. The Apprentice Leaders are upperclassmen students who will act as mentors for the design projects. The campus projects include designing an automatic irrigation system for the OEDK green roof and modifying a surrey for FE&P to use as an alternative to golf carts. The Shriner’s projects include designing a forearm rotation measurement device and modifying a wheelchair so that a patient may use the wheelchair with his existing range of motion and strength. This blog will document the progress of the projects from the perspective of the Apprentice Leaders as well as the freshmen students. It will include written descriptions of classroom activities as well as pictures of the students throughout the design process. The Apprentice Leaders and the freshmen students will write about why they joined this class and what they hope to gain. They will also write about what excites them this semester as well as challenges that they face.