Engineering Teamwork and Interactive Theater

In the mid-90’s, the WISE Program introduced interactive theater to the UM campus as a mechanism to spark conversation and dialogue among faculty, students, and staff about issues of multicultural education and experiences in STEM fields. Gender and Pedagogy, a sketch illustrating the experiences of women in a largely male physics class, was the first to be developed and is still presented to this day. In 2000, the WISE theater troop moved to the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching and became known at the CRLT Players. The program has vastly expanded over the years and now has a roster of over 20 sketches, including a brand new one that should be of interest to science and engineering faculty and students.

The latest production, Off Course, highlights a dysfunctional team attempting to finish a project in an undergraduate engineering course. Corporate recruiters are increasingly telling us that knowing how to function in multicultural teams is as important to graduating engineers as their technical expertise. Off Course graphically illustrates how quickly a team can get bogged down due to communication styles, gender schemas, lack of trust, poor collaboration skills, and poor leadership. Premiering in December 2006 in Professor Fogler’s ChE 496 course, the sketch was extremely well received by the student audience, generally juniors and seniors. One student commented that it was so realistic that it was scary! Wonderful discussion followed the presentation on how teams should be organized and function as well as the role of individual team members.

Off Course will soon be available to be presented to Engin 100 classes as well as to faculty who are interested in learning how to shape and mentor successful and productive team work. Special thanks go to former CoE Dean Steven Director for issuing and funding the challenge of developing this script, the WISE Program for serving as intermediary in the process, Jeffrey Steiger and Ward Beauchamp of the CRLT Players for the wonderful script and direction, and Connie Cook, Director of CRLT, for oversight.

Coming soon to a stage (or classroom) near you!

February 2007 eNews

December 2006 eNews

Archived issues of WISE eNews