Interdisciplinary Student Teams Research Articles

Psychological safety in online interdisciplinary student teams: What teachers can do to promote an effective climate for knowledge sharing, collaboration and problem-solving

Interdisciplinary complex problem-solving relies on psychologically safe teamwork where individuals feel confident to speak up with unique knowledge, or voice dissent. Existing studies on psychological safety (PS) have mainly concentrated on developing diagnostic tools and categorising the antecedents to psychologically safe interactions in face-to-face teams. Few focus on the establishment and maintenance of psychological safety in online teamwork, let alone in the context of now-prevalent online learning in higher education. Leveraging the natural experiment in online teaching and learning brought about by COVID-19 lockdowns, we conducted a preliminary study that combines quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the extent to which, and how, undergraduates experience psychological safety in virtual teams. Students reported experiencing relatively high psychological safety in their collaborations, yet the results also suggest that specific elements of instructional design were needed to support the establishment and maintenance of psychological safety in the online environment. These measures include extra provision for timetabled group work, demonstrating openness and curiosity, designing assessment tasks that necessitate diverse contributions and normalising constructive failure through iterative feedback. Pedagogical tools and practices related to these measures can help online student teams build and sustain psychologically safe collaboration to optimise problem-solving and innovation.

Knowledge objects and knowledge practices in interdisciplinary learning: Example of an organization simulation in higher education

ABSTRACT Background Higher education is expected to prepare students with interdisciplinary learning (IDL), which is important for their educational and working life opportunities. The cocreation of knowledge in interdisciplinary teams offers multiple opportunities for the emergence of collective knowledge objects (KOs) and knowledge practices (KPs). Methods During iterations of an organization simulation course, interdisciplinary student teams created an offer of human resource services for a client. To analyze the students’ IDL (84 students in 12 teams), we conducted an interaction analysis, drawing on sociocultural and knowledge practice perspectives on technology-mediated learning. First, video-recordings of two teams’ meetings were analyzed to trace the tensions, negotiations, and cocreation of KOs. Second, students’ reflective diaries were analyzed to identify collective KPs. Findings The negotiation and cocreation of KOs were mediated by multiple material resources and participants’ disciplinary knowledge. In their diaries, students described the following collective KPs: 1) attending to interdisciplinary problems, 2) responsibility taking, 3) framing expertise and contribution, 4) crossing interdisciplinary boundaries, 5) exploring and concretizing new knowledge, and 6) reflecting and expanding upon practices and knowledge. Contributions The study widens our understanding of the intertwined dynamics of KOs and KPs through which students collectively create and engage in interdisciplinary learning.

Entangled Co-Design with a Trickster: Speculative Framing and Reframing

Speculative design, as a diverse set of methods that aim to offer critique, can be challenging to engage productively. In this design case, we share how a prior, stalled design project—an ambitious vision of interdisciplinary design education partnered with business and housing development projects in Santa Fe, New Mexico—provided compelling precedent as we sought to reframe during the COVID-19 pandemic. We recognized that solution-focused ways of working in the prior project left the design problem undefined. As we began the design work detailed in this case, we leveraged the perspectives and design knowledge of our interdisciplinary team of faculty and students. While design cases often emphasize the designed training or program, we focus on our reframing process, sharing vignettes as we prepared to and participated in activities at a design workshop, and then used our own design practices to engage in problem framing workshops. In sharing these accounts, we characterize the pandemic as a trickster and speculative co-designer, who revealed much about how our efforts were entangled with institutional structures. Across these punctuated vignettes of design work, we highlight how an initial broad problem frame invited this trickster to participate and how the application of problem framing tools wrested framing agency from the trickster. Collectively, this anchored our attention to systemic inequities in ways that troubled notions of sustainability.

Embedding mental wellbeing in the curriculum: a collaborative definition and suite of examples in practice

The sector-wide challenge of student mental wellbeing within higher education (HE) requires universities to systematically and holistically enhance their practice and approaches. This paper recounts how an interdisciplinary team of academics, senior leaders, professional services and Students’ Union representatives across seven institutions responded to this need by collaboratively identifying definitions, good-practice for replication, and benefits of activity to embed mental wellbeing in the curriculum. Considering and exploring definitions across HE, our study provides clarity and reference points for definitions, particularly around the nature of “embedding” in relation to mental wellbeing for students. Five core themes for mental wellbeing in HE were identified and defined through this study: flourishing or thriving, balance, community and belonging, dynamic, and inclusive. Furthermore, a five-point definition of embeddedness developed; it being modeled in practice, tailored to needs, inherent in values, ethos and culture, a holistic partnership approach, and represented in strategy supported by appropriate resource. These are represented as a Mental Wellbeing Embeddedness Framework. The study sought good-practice examples from across seven HE providers, presented as example resources for replication by others in the sector seeking to address similar challenges within their institutions. Twenty-seven examples were developed into an online open educational resource toolkit, providing clear examples for use in a range of settings and responding to different needs around student mental wellbeing. Each example sharing its original rationale for development and clear list of benefits to be seen from replicating the initiative. Sector feedback to date indicates referencing the definitions activity and expanding this for use in other contexts, replication of good-practice examples in different settings, and support for identification of the benefits that can be achieved from embedding mental wellbeing in the curriculum. This paper is a call to action, shaping the future direction of student mental wellbeing, supported by policy, practice, and constant innovation.

A Visionary Approach to Advancing Sea Level Rise Adaptation in an Urban Coastal Community, Waikīkī, Hawai‘i

In Hawai‘i, a $19 billion loss is anticipated due to the 3.2 feet (1 meter) of global sea level rise (SLR) predicted earlier this century to occur by 2100, while, in fact, 3 to 4 feet (.9 to 1.2 meters) of SLR by 2100 are now estimated as a mid-range scenario (HSCC, 2022). In Waikīkī, the economic hub of Hawai‘i’s tourism industry, future flooding caused by SLR, groundwater inundation, king tides, rainfall, and storm surge are projected to become a chronic disruption by mid-century (Habel et al., 2017, 2020). In contrast to retreat, one approach to managing SLR in dense urban areas, such as Waikīkī, is to consider an “in-place” flood adaptation or accommodation strategy. An interdisciplinary team of faculty and students at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa are merging science with design to create conceptual urban and architectural design renderings in order to visualize SLR adaptation strategies over time for buildings, utilities, transportation, and open space. Through iterative, structured public outreach, this research provides designers, planners, and policymakers with valuable insights into a diverse group of stakeholders’ preferences and their comments on each adaptation strategy. It supports the resilient planning goals outlined by the state, the City and County of Honolulu, and also the Waikīkī Special District Guidelines (DPP, 2021). In addition, through coursework and employment, students are learning how they might address SLR in their future careers.

The Data Mine model for accessible partnerships in data science

AbstractThe Data Mine at Purdue University is a pioneering experiential learning community for undergraduate and graduate students of any background to learn data science. The first data‐intensive experience embedded in a large learning community, The Data Mine had nearly 1300 students in academic year (AY) 2022–2023 and nearly 1700 students for AY 2023–2024. The Data Mine embodies data‐infused education, research, and collaboration. Students learn Python, R, SQL, and shell‐scripting, while working on weekly projects within a high‐performance computing (HPC) cluster. In the Corporate Partners cohort, students work on teams of 5–15 students, led by a paid student team leader. Each cohort follows an Agile approach, working on data‐intensive projects provided by industry partners and mentored by company employees. Students develop professional and data skills throughout the academic year, from August through April. Many students return in subsequent years to the program, increasing their tenure with a Corporate Partner. Student teams are inherently interdisciplinary; students from 133 different majors are involved in the program, ranging from new incoming students through PhD level students. These interdisciplinary teams of students bring new perspectives to challenging problems in which data science is a key part of the solution. The interdisciplinary teams foster an environment of synthesis with ideas and solutions. Students come together with different life experiences, different levels of technical skill, but also varying ways they navigate paths to solutions because of the variety of majors represented, resulting in a more creative and robust solution than a traditional data science program.This article is categorized under: Applications of Computational Statistics > Education in Computational Statistics

Developing a Surgical Simulation Curriculum for the Rwandan Context

We report on the development and implementation of a surgical simulation curriculum for undergraduate medical students in rural Rwanda. This is a narrative report on the development of scenario and procedure-based content for a junior surgical clerkship simulation curriculum by an interdisciplinary team of simulation specialists, surgeons, anesthesiologists, medical educators, and medical students. University of Global Health Equity, a new medical school located in Butaro, Rwanda. Participants in this study consist of simulation and surgical educators, surgeons, anesthesiologists, research fellows and University of Global Health Equity medical students enrolled in the junior surgery clerkship. The simulation training schedule was designed to begin with a 17-session simulation-intensive week, followed by 8 sessions spread over the 11-week clerkship. These sessions combined the use of high-fidelity mannequins with improvised, bench-top surgical simulators like the GlobalSurgBox, and low-cost gelatin-based models to effectively replace resource intensive options. Emphasis on contextualized content generation, low-cost application, and interdisciplinary design of simulation curricula for low-income settings is essential. The impact of this curriculum on students' knowledge and skill acquisition is being assessed in an ongoing fashion as a substrate for iterative improvement.

Working it Out Together: Toilets, Tourists, and an Interdisciplinary Experience

Abstract In 2019, interdisciplinary teams of anthropology and environmental engineering PhD students went to Placencia Village, Belize to study stakeholder-driven issues related to coastal resilience. Our team explored wastewater management on a few of the more than 400 small cayes peppering the Belize Barrier Reef. These islands have transitioned from temporary sites for overnight fishers to crowded tourism destinations. Wastewater management has struggled to keep pace with these changes, spurring concerns about the health of the reef. Our task was to construct contextualized system dynamic models which would be useful to those concerned. Along the way however, we ran into tensions related to the underlying logic, and representations of people, in mathematical descriptions of social and technical configurations. This article lays out the context and lessons learned from our encounter with interdisciplinary systems modeling.

Studio-centred coursework as a model for hybridized design education

Studio coursework that focuses on real-world problems and stakeholder collaboration is an integral component of interdisciplinary design education. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and increased interest in flexible models of content delivery, we conceptualize the studio course as central to interdisciplinary undergraduate education. Leveraging the pandemic as an opportunity, we argue that changes to studio coursework have created new modalities for design education. By focusing on adaptive, iterative studio coursework during each year of the undergraduate degree, we allow for hybridization of undergraduate design coursework. We present an example of the studio-centred model in action at a large polytechnic university in the United States. Our results may be beneficial to educators and practitioners interested in anchoring undergraduate curricula within interdisciplinary studio work, and for ensuring that interdisciplinary studios are able to respond to the twenty-first-century life skills essential for producing competitive graduates on the global market. We present studio-centred coursework as a model for hybridizing design education. We emphasize collaboration and discovery as key skills to develop in undergraduates. We develop this model through: (1) collaborating with industry partners to determine problem spaces and mentor students; (2) building interdisciplinary teams of students and faculty and (3) hybridizing lecture-based disciplinary coursework. We anchor our results with three years of programme assessment data. By integrating faculty, students and industry partners within the studio-centred model, this study demonstrates how hybridized design-led education can equip students for interdisciplinary collaboration as they progress towards their career goals. Furthermore, we provide discussion on how these competencies are evaluated by stakeholders as desirable skills. Students’ overall positive responses to the studio-centred coursework are captured in our quantitative data. Stakeholder responses come via focus groups held once per semester. Using studio coursework to centre design curricula allows for increased hybridization of the curriculum, as students use studio courses and capstones to apply knowledge, develop projects and attain professional mentorship. Emphasis on societal impact guides students to emphasize the broader impacts of their designs. Using quantitative and qualitative data, we provide a model that integrates research and education in undergrad curricula using a studio-centred model.

Using Activity Theory to understand the interactions of a university interdisciplinary team of scientists and science educators

ABSTRACT Interdisciplinary collaborations between different academic disciplines can create knowledge and solutions to challenges that are beyond the scope of what a single discipline can achieve. However, little is known about how interdisciplinary teams of faculty and graduate students function as a whole and the processes that guide them as they work on collaborative tasks. Using Activity Theory, this qualitative study analyzed team meeting transcripts to examine interdisciplinary team interactions involving Science/Engineering and Science Education graduate students and faculty members as they co-developed laboratory activities for a grant-funded project. Several factors contributed to the team’s success: shared goals (Object), environment (Community), and clear Division of Labor. Differences (contradictions) were found in the Tools, Rules, and Division of Labor; the PI and Science/Engineering graduate students tended to focus on the needed lab materials, and the Science Education members focused more on educational standards and teachers’ ideas in the lab development (Tools). The PI and Science Education members set and enforced the team meeting agendas and deadlines (Rules). The Science/Engineering grad students focused on practical considerations to ensure the labs could successfully be implemented in a class setting (Rules) and were assigned the most tasks to complete (Division of Labor). The findings provide insight into the nature of interdisciplinary team dynamics between a Science/Engineering and Education grant team. The findings also suggest the importance of shared goals (Object), community development (Rules: Team Building), and the potential of capitalizing on different strengths and knowledge (contradictions) in an interdisciplinary team.

Measuring the sociability of virtual learning environments for interdisciplinary student teams – a validation study

ABSTRACT The reliance on the use of virtual learning environments, particularly computer-supported collaborative learning environments, is increasing in higher education institutions. This paper explores the perceived sociability of a virtual learning environment after it was implemented in an interdisciplinary project-based course in a higher education institute in Norway due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It describes the validation of a sociability scale in a sample of 1,611 students. The paper also reports on differences in perceived sociability according to gender, field of study and personality and the extent to which perceptions of sociability relate to the experience of a sudden change from a real-life learning environment to a virtual one. The results of this large-scale study suggest that the Norwegian version of the sociability scale can be used as a valid and reliable instrument to measure the perceived sociability of a virtual learning environment in the context of self-organized student project teams.

Interdisciplinary social needs response team: A community case study in social needs targeted care during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

This case study illustrates the role and value of a social needs response team during times of crisis and beyond. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in two simultaneous crises-the infectious disease crisis and the socioeconomic crisis. Unemployment and lost wages, housing and food insecurity, and increased childcare needs are just a few examples of the socioeconomic needs that skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the start of the pandemic, the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS) formed an interdisciplinary team of physicians, social workers, nurse practitioners and students of these professions to reimagine social needs screening in a way that could reach people during the pandemic and provide sustainable support for individual's evolving social needs. The Social Needs Response Team (SNRT) at UPHS utilized various secure platforms to keep members of the team connected with each other and their patients. Orientations for participating students included training on how to employ principles of crisis intervention theory, empathetic inquiry, and patient-led and family-centered care to best uncover and serve the needs of their patients. Alongside the illustrative case study, this piece details guiding principles and concepts that are essential to integrating social needs targeted care.

Developing a Comprehensive Surgical Simulation Program for Medical Students in the Rwandan Context

INTRODUCTION: Simulation is a recognized tool for effective technical and nontechnical surgical skills training in a low-risk environment. Although benefits are obvious for both high- and low-income contexts, most simulation curricula have been targeted to high-resource settings. We report on the development and implementation of a surgical simulation curriculum for undergraduate medical students in rural Rwanda. METHODS: Content areas were identified through a modified Delphi process implemented across sub-Saharan Africa, with emphasis on the needs of surgical teams practicing in district hospitals. Sixty-eight surgical practitioners and educators across Eastern, Central, Southern, and West Africa participated. An interdisciplinary team of simulation specialists, surgeons, anesthesiologists, medical educators, and medical students generated scenario- and procedure-based content for the junior surgical clerkship simulation curriculum. RESULTS: Participants had 75% agreement on 32 procedures and scenarios which could potentially be taught using simulation. Agreement was highest for aseptic technique, surgical gloving and gowning, consent, basic suturing techniques, and use of local anesthesia. The simulation training schedule (Table) was designed to begin with a 12-session simulation-intensive week, followed by 8 sessions spread over the 11-week clerkship. These sessions combined the use of high-fidelity mannequins with improvised, bench-top surgical simulators like the GlobalSurgBox, and low-cost gelatin-based models to effectively replace resource intensive options. Table. - Surgical Simulation Sessions for the Simulation Intensive Week and Weekly Sessions Week Simulation Curriculum Content Simulation Intensive Week Day 1 Informed Consent, WHO Safety Checklist, Patient Positioning, Patient Draping Day 2 Local Anesthesia, Introduction to Surgical Instruments, Introduction to Knot Tying, Introduction to Suturing Day 3 Interactive ATLS, Basic Airway Management, Chest Tube Insertion, Focused Assessment Sonography for Trauma Ultrasound, Log-roll Day 4 Drainage of Superficial Abcess, Wound Debridement and Drainage, Excision and Biopsy of a Cutaneous Lesion Day 5 Endotracheal Intubation and Trauma Simulation Scenarios Weekly Session 1-8 Venous Access (Peripheral and Central), Insertion of Nasogastric Tubes, Intestinal Obstruction Scenarios, Rectal Examination and Proctoscopy, Breast Examination and Biopsy, Urethral and Suprapubic Catheterization, Splinting and Plaster of Paris Application, Head Trauma Scenarios, Burn Patient Assessment and Management CONCLUSION: Emphasis on contextualized content generation, low-cost application, and interdisciplinary design of simulation curricula for low-income settings is essential. The impact of this curriculum on students’ knowledge and skill acquisition is being assessed in an ongoing fashion as a substrate for iterative improvement.

Visual Communication Design Collaboration with Occupational Therapy to Create Health Literacy Projects for Community Needs

Low levels of health literacy directly correlate to increased mortality rates, decreased health outcomes and overall poorer quality of life. Many social determinants of health can place someone at a higher risk of low health literacy and the negative consequences of decreased skills in this area. Health literacy is a complex task that requires a multi-modal approach and interventions within a variety of spheres of influence in someone’s life. To address this issue in underinvested communities within their own city, teams of Visual Communication Design and Occupational Therapy students, with the support of their faculty and a librarian, worked together to identify a population of interest and pertinent health-related concerns. The result was an interdisciplinary team of students who utilised aspects of the Social Ecology Theory to create solutions and systems that utilised printed and digital modalities at the individual and community levels. This case study offers a model for interdisciplinary collaboration to address health literacy and improve the health outcomes of the population concerned.

Restructuring Interprofessional Education: A Student-Driven Strategic Plan.

To the Editor: Research has consistently shown that interprofessional education (IPE) improves patient-centered care and outcomes. 1–3 Specifically, newer research has identified that student leadership in IPE leads to improved participation among peers and enhances sustainability, thus leading to improved interprofessional education overall. 4 The IPE Student Advisory Committee (SAC) is a student-run committee that serves as a collaborative community for all the health professional schools and officially recognized IPE organizations at the University of Michigan. For the 2020–2021 academic year, the SAC cochairs determined there was a need to improve the IPE experience, increase student engagement, and improve communication. The SAC aimed to improve 3 priority areas: structure, education, and wellness. For structure, the committee hoped to add an additional cochair and divide the cochairs into different priority areas. The cochairs created an IPE representative program in which students who were passionate about IPE were selected from each health school to serve as members of SAC and act as liaisons between SAC, their school, and the other health professional schools. SAC successfully recruited 12 student representatives who have seen support for their IPE endeavors grow. They now have plans to expand courses, increase funding, and improve interprofessional opportunities for their fellow students. For education, students wanted to see more experiential-based learning, so a workgroup of faculty and SAC cochairs worked to create a new IPE experience—the Longitudinal Interprofessional Family-Based Experience (LIFE). LIFE connected interdisciplinary student teams with patients and families managing chronic illnesses. It launched this past semester with positive feedback from participants who hope to continue. For wellness, the SAC cochairs partnered with a representative from the University of Michigan Wellness Office and convened a Wellness Task Force that works directly with the Wellness Office representative to improve communication about different wellness offerings. Organizational change can be a difficult undertaking, but it is especially crucial to execute well when working within interprofessional teams. As a fairly new organization that serves as a role model for IPE excellence, SAC had the opportunity to revolutionize how interprofessional organizations function and achieve goals to improve the interprofessional experience for all students at the University of Michigan. The cochairs aim to share their implementation of structure-based initiatives in hopes that other medical training programs can follow. They want to educate fellow medical trainees on different ways they can have an impact on their institutions’ IPE programming.

The Spatial Awareness Project: A Co-Created Interdisciplinary Educational Film and Podcast

Place-based digital storytelling can transform conversations about environmental challenges. Yet, co-creating digital stories also has the power to transform those involved in producing them. This is the critical reflection of an interdisciplinary team of lecturers and students who produced their own contextually situated resources to spark conversations about, and public awareness of, land use classifications environmental issues in Aotearoa New Zealand. The resulting short film on land use and podcast series on environmental issues challenges us to imagine new human-environment futures and highlights the existing disconnects and constraints that have limited our ability to achieve them. This case study will be useful for others interested in creating similar projects.

Effectiveness of Interdisciplinary Teaching on Creativity: A Quasi-Experimental Study.

Little is known about the effectiveness of Interdisciplinary teaching (IDT) in higher education, particularly for healthcare education in Taiwan. It is vital to determine if IDT could enhance divergent creative thinking and team creativity among nursing students. A quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design. Students enrolled in a capstone nursing course for the development of healthcare-related products were divided into two groups. The intervention group (n = 61) was taught creative thinking skills with IDT by faculty. The control group (n = 84) was taught by nursing faculty with traditional teaching. This study found that students who received the IDT intervention scored significantly higher on measures of creative thinking and team creativity compared with students in the control group. These findings suggest integrating IDT from nursing and design faculty into the teaching curriculum to foster students’ creative thinking abilities when formulating interdisciplinary student teams to develop innovative, creative healthcare products.

To other new educational ways for interdisciplinary cooperation and innovation: about a student-driven hackathon

Background: Innovation in healthcare cannot be conceived without an interdisciplinary approach. Hackathons are an innovative approach to promote team working and demonstrated an interest in higher education through inquiry-based learning. An interdisciplinary team of students and young professionals organized the first hybrid presential and online neurorehabilitation hackathon, within the joined 2020 WCNR-SOFMER congress, adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Interdisciplinary teams worked during two days on concrete issues met by people with a disability and their caregivers, accompanied by multi-skilled mentors to create tangible solutions. An independent jury selected the winning project. Results: HRL met the expectations of 96% of the 31 participants. They reported better knowledge and ability about teamwork, ethics, and patient-centered approaches. Conclusions: HRL allowed the creation of a strong interdisciplinary and international network which will be valuable to foster innovation. It demonstrated its value in the junior and students’ training for teamwork, communication, creativity in innovation, and ethics in health.

Performance of a Mid-Size Net-Zero Energy Solar House

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) was one of 16 collegiate teams from around the world that participated in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2017 competition. An interdisciplinary team of students from across the university was engaged in a 2-year long process to design and build a house that is powered completely by solar power. The house was equipped to run all the typical appliances of an average modern house at similar levels on a conventional power grid. The net-zero house was built and tested on the UAB campus. Considering Birmingham’s weather, a safe room was built to ensure the safety of occupants during events of extreme weather, such as a tornado. A ductless HVAC unit consisting of an inverter-type 3-speed outdoor unit supplied refrigerant to four high-wall indoor units providing the primary source of space conditioning. To achieve a model of efficiency and cost effectiveness, the house incorporated a heavily insulated envelope and precise glazing protection. The roof, floor framing and walls had R-30 batt and foam insulation. With a design informed by southern vernacular language, the building is oriented to maximize solar access and to use roof planes for shading the majority of the year. Peak power generation of the panels was recorded at 9.6 kW. The home has a centralized energy management system that can provide access to energy consumption data and allow control of lighting, appliances, and plug loads remotely. Energy modeling showed that the annual electricity consumption for heating and cooling with variation in wall types were 8470 to 11,661 kWh. For the month of October, it was calculated varying from 683 to 763 kWh, with varying air changes per hour from 0 to 1.5.

Tango Together: Developing and Implementing Dance Workshops in a Memory Care Center

<h3>Research Objectives</h3> The objectives of this program were to examine the feasibility of a dance program for persons with dementia and their family caregivers in a memory center and to examine its impact on physical function and socialization. <h3>Design</h3> Pre-post design. <h3>Setting</h3> The intervention and data collection took place at a memory care center in Boerne, Texas. <h3>Participants</h3> 37 community members completed the dance program, and 6 of those individuals participated in the pilot study. Of the sample who completed pre and post testing (n=6), 5 were female, living with dementia and 1 was a male caregiver, with an average age of 85 years. <h3>Interventions</h3> The Tango Together program was designed by an interdisciplinary team of students to improve balance, sensory stimulation, fine motor skills and motivation. Students also incorporated fall-prevention and caretaker education into the program. <h3>Main Outcome Measures</h3> Data were collected before and after completion of the Tango Together dance program. Gait parameters were recorded from the Strideway gait mat including gait velocity (cm/sec), step length and stride length (cm) for both right and left legs. <h3>Results</h3> All 6 participants completed the dance program successfully with no adverse events. Gait velocity (54.8±20.7 to 68.6±23.1 cm/s), step length for right side (34±10.6 to 40.4±11.3 cm) and stride length for both right (70.5±20.5 to 81.2±23 cm) and left (70.9±21.2 to 80.9±22.5 cm) improved significantly (p < 0.05) after completion of the Tango Together program. <h3>Conclusions</h3> Development of this program provides the groundwork for delivering a dance-based program for individuals with dementia. Results from this pilot study indicate the feasibility of a community based dance intervention in improving gait parameters for individuals with dementia. Future studies with larger sample sizes and including a retention period need to be conducted. <h3>Author(s) Disclosures</h3> Each of the authors declares that he or she has no relevant or material financial interests that relate to the research described in this abstract.