Team learning for engineering students

One of the top concerns on any recruiter's list is the amount of experience, if any, the new graduates being hired have had in working as part of a team. Aside from those students who have been involved in athletics, the concept of working as part of a team for a common goal is completely foreign to nearly all of our students. As an attempt to better prepare students for entry into a very team-oriented workplace after graduation and with the belief that cooperative team learning, in itself, has the potential for an enhanced learning experience, the format of a second semester junior electronics course was modified to accommodate pedagogical concepts more in line with team learning. This paper reports on the concepts implemented in this course and the results experienced to date (after three semesters of implementation).>