This engineering education CAREER project supports research in facilitation theory and team skill education for engineering students. A by product of the study will be the creation and assessment of an expert system (virtual facilitator) to facilitate team development and performance. This virtual facilitator can be used to model the behaviors of an expert facilitator to engineering student teams as they are working together. Drawing on previous data, the PI will develop a practical tool that will help engineering students learn team skills while, at the same time, advancing research in team dynamics and facilitation. As a research tool, it will provide the opportunity to test theories about team function and facilitation, especially across large numbers of teams. Also the use of expert systems as a model for observational learning of teaming skills has the potential to be applied widely and with significant impact to improve learning engineering team skills.
