Collective systems innovation with education: Approach for class integration around design projects

Marc M. Somers

Collective systems represent an emerging and expanding organizational structure formed by self forming communities. Widely used platforms such as Source Forge and Wikipedia are examples of structures created and developed by collectively organized communities. Collectively organized communities or collective systems are formed by users sharing common objectives and assembling in an organization to create a shared knowledge base. The success of such environments has lead researchers to consider application possibilities within academia. Self organized communities provide stark distinctions between the traditional present academic structures - with a primary advantages being rights and privileges of its users. Within a collectively organized community, user involvement is based on personal objectives and motivation with collaboration occurring when mutual interests align. Within academia, the introduction of collective-based systems presents the opportunity to provide educational to yield an academic environment more reflective of the needs and interests. This thesis seeks to explore the benefits of “hybrid” system-combining traditional and collective-based structures to capture student personal learning objectives. This paper discusses the effects of introducing collective systems characteristics within a traditional structured degree program via class integration. The work conducted involves two undergraduate mechanical engineering teams tasked with completing the same design project. Team One consists of a senior design group (ME416, four seniors) and a junior design class (ME316, 54 juniors), who conducted the project in a collectively organized structure. And Team Two consists of one senior design group (five seniors), who worked under a traditionally structured environment. The engineering design project was sponsored by the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard – Bremerton (PSNS) and required the design and planning of a testing platform for hydraulic relief valves. The hypothesis presented in this work focuses on class integration providing students with an enhanced learning environment. To validate the hypothesis: the experience provided the collectively structure groups are evaluated and compared against a control group (Team Two). By organizing two teams working separately on the same design project, the opportunity exists to compare traditional and collective-based classroom learning environments. The results show a strong favoring for collective-based classroom environments, with 76% of juniors preferring to have future integrated classes. Additionally 72% of the junior design class recorded that they personally felt they learned better within an integrated class structure. Amongst the seniors design group, all seniors recorded that the junior design team considered designs they may not have explored, and that their efforts supported their own design efforts. When Team One was compared to the control group (Team Two), Team O ne displayed a stronger research base – reflective of the involvement effects during the design phase. And while both teams produced feasible and functional designs, the project sponsor labeled Team 1’s design as “ahead of the curve,” and that Team 1’s design captured a “wow!” that factor working engineers might not have considered. These results suggest that collective-based classrooms have the potential to create learning environments that capture student learning objectives while meeting degree program requirements. Integrated classes provided students with the opportunity to pursue personal objectives, adding personal relevance and importance to their academic studies. Not only are the students favorable to an integrated class structure, but the work shows that collective-based structures can produce exemplary work. Given the stakeholder feedback and project outcomes of the integrated design classes, there exists within this trial the promotion for further collective-based efforts.

Collective systems innovation with education: Approach for class integration around design projects

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