Aircraft engineering: An interdisciplinary minor module

Aircraft Engineering is offered as a minor module at the University of Twente. It consists of 3 courses and a project in which students make a conceptual design of an aircraft. Every year around 100 students of 12 different bachelor programmes participate. This means that prior knowledge of students differs and working in interdisciplinary teams is a new challenge. To overcome the differences in prior knowledge the project groups are composed with a maximum variety of students from different bachelor programmes. This way, students can help each other to master the knowledge gaps. A series of three workshops on interdisciplinary teamwork was developed for this minor module. Results of these workshops are encouraging. The collaboration within the groups is good. In several groups the students helped each other with mastering the theory. Also students showed more concern for each other’s knowledge development. The group reflection reports that were part of the final project report showed that students did appreciate the interdisciplinary teamwork. Students indicated gaining insight in interdisciplinary teamwork as well in their individual strengths and weaknesses.