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Session Description

Free ticketed event
Participants will experience a one-class-period role-playing activity of a historic aerospace event. Similar to a murder mystery, this role-playing activity enlists participants into specific roles to experience an engineering event as it actually occurred. Participants are given information (clues/prompts) throughout the 60-minute activity that allows them to make decisions before moving on to the next phase. Participants will be given unique personalities and expected to work together within an organizational structure to problem-solve.

Using the presenter's experience as a systems engineer on NASA satellites, this activity was developed to convey the excitement of real-world, intense engineering scenarios to students who are hungry to have a sense of what working in industry might be like. Following the simulation, participants will debrief the activity first as participants, modelling how to facilitate a discussion with students about the role-playing event and interpersonal communication that occurred during the activity. Then, they will examine the activity as instructors and consider how it could be replicated in their classrooms. Lastly, participants will discuss how role-playing is already utilized in their classrooms and brainstorm how it might be used more effectively in their specific context.

By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to 1) replicate the activity in their classrooms, 2) facilitate a class discussion on leadership styles, conflict management strategies, and interpersonal communication that were employed during the event, and 3) identify how role-playing can be adopted in their classroom for students to experience real-world engineering scenarios that apply to their discipline.

Schedule:
1 hour - Participate in a role-playing scenario (similar to a murder mystery) to experience a high-pressure, real-life engineering historic event
30 minutes - debrief the activity as you would with students, then as instructors who could facilitate a similar activity
30 minutes - discuss in small groups then as a large group how role-playing is already implemented in their classrooms
30 minutes - brainstorm how role-playing can be useful for their particular course to convey real-world engineering experiences and the excitement of high-pressure engineering scenarios

Speaker

1. Libby Osgood P.Eng.

   University of Prince Edward Island

   Libby Osgood, PhD, PEng, is an aerospace engineer who worked as a Systems Engineer for 4 years on LDCM and GLAST spacecraft for NASA. She is now an associate professor in the Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering (FSDE) at the University of Prince Edward Island, teaching Dynamics and Design courses. She was recently named a 2024 3M National Teaching Fellow by the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) and 3M Canada.