2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engineering education increasingly demands collaboration, empathy, and community-minded professionalism. While engineering curricula have traditionally emphasized cognitive and essential competencies such as communication, problem-solving, teamwork, and procedural knowledge, comparatively little emphasis has been devoted to the social and behavioral dimensions of learning enabling students to work effectively with others, navigate interpersonal dynamics, and contribute meaningfully to shared goals. Existing approaches to teamwork often focus on task-oriented collaboration, including role coordination, communication strategies, and project outcomes. Yet, they tend to overlook the voluntary, informal, and prosocial behaviors that build trust, sustain a positive learning climate, and strengthen team cohesion. Fostering these behaviors requires learning environments that intentionally nurture cooperation, mutual respect, and collective responsibility.
The Collaborate, Elevate, and Engineer Together (CEET) program introduces a pedagogical framework grounded in Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) to strengthen these human and social dimensions of learning in mechanical engineering education. OCB, widely studied in organizational psychology, refers to voluntary, discretionary, and prosocial behaviors that are not formally required but that contribute to the success of a group or community (Organ et al., 2005). Within educational settings, OCB behaviors, such as helping peers, showing tolerance, and demonstrating respect, enhance the collaborative learning climate and foster a deeper sense of belonging, trust, and shared identity. Applying OCB principles to engineering classrooms, CEET seeks to cultivate collaborative cultures that encourage mutual responsibility, peer support, and shared ownership of learning.
Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), this three-year Implementation and Evaluation Project integrates OCB-based pedagogical interventions into undergraduate mechanical engineering courses to promote excellence in learning and professional identity formation. The program’s pedagogical model unfolds across three progressive phases of CEET, guiding students through building study-mate partnerships, engaging in cross-team knowledge sharing, and recognizing peers’ contributions through OCB milestone awards. Complementary learning tools, including microlearning videos, after-action reviews, and digital recognition systems, are used to optimize the students’ collaborative learning experience.
This Work-in-Progress paper presents the theoretical foundation, design rationale, and early implementation of CEET. Through its intentional integration of prosocial behaviors and reflective collaboration, CEET aims to enhance students’ engineering identity, sense of belonging, and learning performance while fostering teamwork and social connectedness essential for professional practice. We aim to share the design of the CEET intervention and invite feedback from the engineering education community to inform its future development and broader application.
Detailed descriptions of the CEET framework, implementation strategies, and evaluation plans are presented in the full paper.