Disciplinary Diversity in the Development of Geotechnical Engineering Undergraduate Education Materials

A team of geotechnical engineering faculty and students and educational technology faculty and students worked together to develop, pilot test, and disseminate learning materials in unsaturated soils for undergraduate geotechnical engineering courses. The eventual goal of the team is the institutionalization of this learning material. The geotechnical engineers served as the subject matter experts and were the primary resource for the content. The educational technology team members' primary responsibilities were the development of materials and evaluation of the material's effectiveness. Faculty resistance to change was another issue addressed. The educational technology team members assisted with the flexibility and seamlessness of the material into current undergraduate geotechnical engineering classes, thus lessening the resistance. This paper will emphasize challenges encountered in working with those outside of their own field of expertise, in this case, the interdisciplinary design team. Qualitative data in the form of notes, design logs, and surveys and interviews will show the challenge of learning new curriculum (educational technology) and/or methods (geotechnical engineers). Learning new material without the background knowledge and dealing with unfamiliar research methods and regulations are dominant themes. In the development of the curriculum material, established guidelines were followed. When a diverse team from different backgrounds is involved, it may benefit the team if some additional steps are taken at the initial stages. One major recommendation is that the team establishes roles and expectations for each member early on and leaning objectives for the learning materials.