Work in progress — Using video and self-reflection to enhance undergraduate teams

Engineers today must be able to communicate and collaborate in teams. They also must be comfortable making adjustments within the team to maintain flow and progress toward project goals. With these goals in mind, students in a first-semester engineering seminar course were asked to videotape a team meeting in their design course and to write a self-reflection paper after viewing their video. After analyzing the video, students were asked to provide clear suggestions in their self-reflection paper for improving their own and their team´s performance. Our preliminary analysis showed that video-supported reflections: 1) may be more effective than memory for identifying problems within the team; 2) can encourage detailed analysis about students´ interactions with each other; 3) can be used to help provide feedback on each student´s and the teammates behaviors; and 4) can be an efficient tool for generating an effective problem-solving environment.