LEGO SERIOUS PLAY AND THE GRADUATE ATTRIBUTES

As part of a longitudinal project to integrate career development supports into a biosystems engineering classroom, students engaged in a LEGO© Serious Play workshop and wrote reflections on their experiences. This workshop provided opportunities for teambuilding and deliberations on what constitutes a strong team. A constructivist grounded theory analysis of students’ reflections was conducted.  Through this analysis, a preliminary theme of Perceptions of Engineering Skill emerged, with three subthemes of the necessity of teamwork and communication to engineering; the vulnerability in making interpersonal connection; and the explicit connection of engineering to creativity. These skills can be conceptualized within the CEAB graduate attributes and theorized within the systems theory framework (STF) of career development, which positions the students’ skill development within the larger context of their career. Ultimately, the preliminary findings of this study provide a starting point for further analysis, and for the development of an interview protocol for the longitudinal study this project sits within, with the overarching goal to investigate the impact of career supports and process of career development in a professional degree program.