As anyone in the Electrical and Systems Engineering community can confirm, research is collaborative. One’s work builds on the contributions of others. Yet the collaborative nature of research can unfortunately lend itself to various misunderstandings, miscommunications, and missed deadlines.
Dr. Jan Van der Spiegel and Alfred Moore Senior Fellow Sid Deliwala, Director of Labs, ESE, discussed ways to both augment collaboration while mitigating confusion on Monday, February 9th at the Lessons from Teamwork-Based Courses workshop. Organized by ESE’s CETLI Graduate Fellow, A.J. Geers, this spring’s CETLI workshop series is open to all graduate students at Penn pursuing the CETLI Teaching Certificate.
Teamwork remains fundamental to the success of the senior design course that Van der Spiegel and Deliwala have co-taught for the past six years.
Prior to joining Dr. Firooz Aflatouni’s lab as a doctoral candidate, Geers completed his Senior Design Project with Van der Spiegel and Deliwala.
“We have known AJ for years,” Deliwala said. “Since senior design, A.J. has TA’d for many courses. And courses such as ESE 2150 Electrical Circuits and Systems and ESE 3190 Fundamentals of Solid-State Circuits wouldn’t be the same without his contributions.”
During Monday’s discussion, Van der Spiegel highlighted the differences between research for senior design projects and research labs. Primary differences include length of time, prescribed deliverables, and hierarchy. Undergraduate students spend two semesters in senior design compared to several years in a research lab. Undergraduate students have clearly defined expectations for their senior design deliverables. The research conducted by doctoral students entails “evolving milestones and outcomes,” Van der Spiegel explained. Hierarchy plays a role as well. Consider the fact that senior design students work with peers whereas research groups have a pecking order from the PI to Postdocs, to senior to junior graduate fellows, masters, and undergraduate students Van der Spiegel said.
Despite the differences noted above, collaboration underpins successful research whether in academia, non-profits, or industry, Van der Spiegel emphasized. Communication and planning then remains paramount to fostering robust research collaboration, Van der Spiegel explained, providing several examples for how to achieve it. Highlights include weekly check-ins, and clearly defined procedures and expectations.
According to Deliwala, students in Senior Design have used software such as Notion to track meetings and deliverables.
Conflict however is unfortunately inevitable. When it comes to conflict resolution, Van der Spiegel advocates diplomacy and constructive feedback. If one team member, for example, has contributed significantly less time than other team members, Van der Spiegel suggested opening conversations with statements such as “I noticed that…” followed by “This affects the project by” as opposed to directly accusing the team member of not making adequate contributions.
Van der Spiegel then asked those in attendance to review a case study involving the dynamics of the lab under pressure to meet a tight grant application deadline. The lab consisted of 2 postdocs, 4 PhD students, and 2 undergraduate students. Problems that existed within the lab such as interpersonal dynamics, resource allocation, not having clearly defined processes, and power dynamics came to the forefront under the deadline. Through subsequent discussion, the doctoral students in attendance suggested senior students should take the time to train junior students as one example for how to mitigate lab conflicts.
Geers will host the following CETLI Workshops this Spring: Dr. Firooz Aflaltouni will deliver a talk on Incorporating Research into the Classroom, Dr. Thomas Farmer will deliver a talk on Utilizing Simulation Tools and Dr. Troy Olsson will deliver a talk on Teaching Across Disciplines. Stay-tuned for updates.