Background: Project management and other professional skill training is often lacking in graduate student education, typically as a result of limited resources, lack of faculty buy-in, and narrow focus on thesis research. To address this need and with support from NSF, we are developing the Graduates for Advancing Professional Skills (GAPS) program at Iowa State University. To aid the initial development of this program, we conducted a literature review to understand the current context of the development and implementation of professional skills in higher education curricula, with specific interest in STEM fields.
Purpose: The purpose of our study was to identify best practices related to implementing professional development skills into an academic curriculum. The goal was to utilize this information in the development, planning, implementation, and assessment of our GAPS program.
Design: We engaged in a systematic literature review. We focused on the curricular and pedagogical approaches to implementing these skills, results of the initiatives, and methodologies used to assess their effectiveness.
Results: Our literature review uncovered the “messiness” of teaching and learning of skills such as project management. There is often not one approach or definition of project management – it may change based on scope of project and context. Successful implementation requires adaptability, mentorship, problem solving, creativity, and communication. Additionally, project management has been referred to as a “threshold concept” and requires a certain level of intuition that cannot necessarily be gained through traditional classroom education.
Conclusions: There appears to be an agreement on the importance of implementing project management skills at the postsecondary level. Our work illustrates the difficulty associated with undertaking this endeavor and provides guidance on approaches that can make these initiatives more beneficial. Although this literature was conducted to aid in the planning for our specific project, the synthesis of the extant works can inform other faculty and industry leaders who are interested in teaching and applying project management techniques in their courses or companies.
more »
« less
A Community of Practice Approach to Integrating Professional Skills Training with Graduate Thesis Research
Background. It is well recognized that current graduate education is too narrowly focused on thesis research. Graduate students have a strong desire to gain skills for their future career success beyond thesis research. This obvious gap in professional skill training in current graduate study also leads to the common student perception that professional skills beyond academic knowledge should only be gained after completion of thesis research.
Purpose. A new program is being developed to rigorously integrate professional skills training with thesis research. The approach is to establish learning communities of Graduates for Advancing Professional Skills (GAPS) to incorporate project management skill training from industry into academic research. The GAPS program seeks to address two fundamental education research questions: How can project management skill training be integrated with thesis research in graduate education? What is the role/value of learning communities in enhancing the training and retention of professional skills and the effectiveness of thesis research? Our proposed solution is that graduate student learning communities engaging in a blended online and classroom approach will promote learning of professional skills such as
project and time management in thesis research activities. The purpose of this session is to establish the connection between project management and thesis research, and demonstrate the beginning progress of the GAPS program towards.
Methodology/approach. The following progress is being made to establish GAPS learning communities through which to teach and practice professional skills. A website has been developed to introduce the program, recruit participants, provide information on the online modules, and survey results of participants’ current levels of knowledge and skills related to project management. A new course, “Introduction of Project Management for Thesis Research”, has been added to the course catalog and open to enrollment for students from different majors. In addition, learning modules including project charter, scheduling, communication, teamwork, critical path method, and lean concept are developed. Case studies and examples have been developed to help students learn how to utilize project management skills in their thesis research.
Conclusions. The concept of integrating professional skills training with thesis research through learning communities has been demonstrated. There are multiple advantages of this approach, including efficient utilization of the current resources, and faculty buy-in. Preliminary data from the first cohort are being collected and analyzed to identify students’ needs, benefits of the program, and areas of improvement for future cohort iterations.
Implications. The GAPS program will improve professional skill training for graduate
students through communities of practice. This new learning model has the potential to fundamentally change the culture of graduate education. We believe the method
demonstrated here can be broadly applied to different engineering majors, and even broadly to all thesis research.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1954946
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10245787
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ASEE North Midwest Section Annual Conference 2020
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- Paper ID #32158
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) graduate education traditionally has focused on developing technical and research skills needed to be successful in academic and research settings. In the past decade, however, STEM graduate students increasingly have sought positions in the industry [1]; a recent study by Sherman et al. [2] found that non-academic industry jobs were the most preferred career choice for STEM doctoral students. Despite this preference, graduate education has yet to adapt to better prepare students for their industry positions; a significant portion of students need critical professional skills, such as project management (PM), needed to be effective leaders in these non-academic environments [3-9]. Although a required skill in the industry, these professional skills also can significantly enhance future careers within research and the academy.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)Researcher innovation and leadership skills are fundamental to create implementable solutions to pressing societal- and market-based global problems. The Research to Innovation to Society (R2I2S) program is a transformative approach to graduate education, training students at the intersection of research, innovation, and leadership. We detail the design of the program, and a three-year exploratory investigation of its impact at one research university in the western United States. We found that, overall, students who participated in the program realized the value of thinking about their scientific research from a market-need perspective. Students perceived enhanced interest in and understanding of societal and market insights related to their own and other’s research. As well, students developed professional skills in communication, team collaboration, innovation, and entrepreneurial skills. We situate our findings in frameworks concerning the development of emerging professionals and argue for programming for STEM graduate students that extends the deep discipline knowledge-based model of professional development into one inclusive of leadership, communication, and innovation goals.more » « less
-
This paper describes the development of a facilitator training program that prepares volunteers to offer interactive workshops to build professional skills. This effort to “train the trainers” is part of the CyberAmbassadors workforce development project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The overarching goal of the CyberAmbassadors project is to develop professional skills training that helps participants collaborate more effectively in interdisciplinary settings. The core curriculum for participants includes 20+ hours of materials and activities to build communications, teamwork, and leadership skills. The “train the trainers” project described here is a complementary effort to prepare STEM professionals to facilitate these CyberAmbassadors professional skills trainings for their own workplaces and communities. The facilitator training program was developed and tested with two cohorts, totaling more than 50 participants. Over the course of two days of in-person training, new facilitators had opportunities to experience the core curriculum as participants; to practice facilitation skills and lead group activities; to discuss practical and logistical aspects of offering training in their own communities; and to become familiar with the underlying pedagogy, learning goals, and modular structure of the professional skills curriculum. Surveys were used to collect feedback and evaluate participants’ satisfaction with the CyberAmbassadors professional skills curriculum; their self-assessment of facilitation and professional skills before and after the training; and feedback on the facilitator training experience. Responses from the first cohort of participants were used to refine the facilitator training program and it was offered to a second group of volunteers six months later. In the intervening time, several facilitators from the first cohort implemented CyberAmbassadors trainings at academic institutions, professional conferences, and industry workplaces. Participant surveys were used to provide feedback to the volunteer facilitators and to assist the project coordinators in identifying areas where additional training or support might be helpful. These lessons were used to improve the facilitator training program for the second cohort, and we recruited some of the original volunteers to help lead the second “train the trainers” experience. This approach both provides newer facilitators with additional experience and expands the number of individuals who can “train the trainers” and help to propagate the program for future participants. In addition to describing the experiences and results from this “train the trainers” effort, this paper details the information, planning tools, and supports that are incorporated throughout the CyberAmbassadors professional skills curriculum materials to assist facilitators in offering these trainings. Lessons learned from this project can be adapted to other professional education efforts, both in terms of preparing new instructors and in helping trained facilitators better understand and meet the needs of their audience.more » « less
-
The Rising Engineering Education Faculty Experience program (REEFE) is a professional development program that connects graduate students in engineering education with faculty members at teaching-focused institutions. The program goal is to simultaneously support faculty growth in engineering education and graduate student growth as academic change agents. Our program has transitioned from a partnership between one engineering education graduate program and one engineering institution to a consortium of engineering education graduate programs that sends students to multiple institutions across the country. The REEFE Consortium also developed a unique partnership with the Making Academic Change Happen initiative to offer continuous training to graduate students during their REEFE experience. Many positive outcomes have come from the development of the REEFE Consortium, including better graduate training in research at the coordinating institution, a better understanding of program logistics, and new and strengthened professional relationships. We discovered a number of challenges associated with providing intensive professional development opportunities to graduate students, including timing of experiences relative to degree progress, loss of connection to the home research community, and financial impact, especially as it relates to travel and housing. While a search of existing literature in professional development in higher education has provided best practices for existing programs, there is little to no available research highlighting barriers that exist to offering different types of professional development opportunities to graduate student populations. These barriers are important to highlight as they provide critical information needed in the design and decision making for those seeking to create useful professional development opportunities for graduate populations. This paper provides an updated description of the Rising Engineering Education Faculty Experience program as we attempt to scale the program. We summarize the existing literature on barriers to participation in professional development opportunities for graduate students. Finally, we describe how REEFE both addresses and fails to address these barriers.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
