Interdisciplinary Team-Based Learning: An Integrated Opportunity Recognition and Evaluation Model for Teaching Business, Engineering and Design Students

Abstract

This paper describes a pedagogical framework and a set of team-based learning (TBL) activities which can be applied to an interdisciplinary course comprised of a mix of engineering, design, and business students. The goal of the team-based learning (TBL) activities is to help students to appreciate both the benefits and the challenges of working in interdisciplinary teams. To enhance their interdisciplinary collaboration skills, students engage in a series of knowledge sharing and knowledge integration activities, based on the Jigsaw technique, a team-based learning methodology. These activities enable the students to recognize and reconcile their disciplinary differences and biases, which arise because of the cognitive diversity of the team. Students are assigned to interdisciplinary teams to identify and prototype an entrepreneurial opportunity. By the end of these activities, students are able to incorporate the perspectives of all three disciplines to develop an integrated team mental model (TMM) of the opportunity recognition and opportunity evaluation process.