Illinois Institute of Technology is implementing the IIT Interprofessional Projects (IPRO) Program to integrate project-based team experiential learning across the entire span of disciplines encompassed by the undergraduate college curriculum, and involve the graduate programs across the university that include engineering, science, law, business, psychology, design and architecture. The distinctiveness of this learning model, tested over the past two years (via 47 pilot projects to date), is the formation of project teams, each with a mix of 5-15 students from across the professional disciplines and from multiple levels (sophomore through graduate), who are brought together under a three-credit-hour format at the rate of 30 project courses per semester. Organizations from the workplace (corporate, entrepreneurial, non-profit, government) supply multi-faceted current topics and support the teams in a co-mentoring role with the faculty and a graduate student project leader. This NSF project will: define the pedagogy, policy and practice for the IPRO Program through a consensus building process coordinated by a new Office of Interprofessional Projects; create an IPRO summer leadership institute for {graduate student project leaders and specialized IPRO Program development workshops for faculty; develop/test an evaluation/assessment methodology for the IPRO pedagogy; develop colloquium n on project-based learning and multi-functional teams across the professions to attract faculty and otkeI specialists in academia and industry to share effective approaches to teaching and learning via team projects; develop a project sponsorship program with workplace organizations; and demonstrate a collaborative web based scientific laboratory virtual environment to bridge disciplines, campuses, and sponsors. IIT will explore the concept of a Center for the Study of Project-based Learning and Multi-Functional Teams Across the Professions to provide the IPRO Program with cohesion, coordination and resource support for academic units, develop a. concentration of scholarly research in project-based learning and teamwork that offiers a national forum for a and workplace organizations, and develop a strong empirical base for designing and implementing effective project team learning programs.
