This innovative practice full paper explores the significance of theatre as a pedagogical tool in teaching personal communication courses to engineering students. Teaching non-technical subj ects, such as humanities and communication courses, to engineering students has been a momentous challenge. This is due in part to the perception that these subjects are not directly related to the technical nature of the field of engineering studies. Furthermore, these courses are perceived to be irrelevant to the practical applications of technology and engineering in the real world. Engineering students prefer hands-on, practical, and experimental projects that directly correlate with their technical field of study. Therefore, instructional methods and pedagogies play a pivotal role in shaping engineering students' learning, especially of humanities and communication courses. Personal communication courses in the past have been primarily delivered through lectures on communication theories and a few classroom experiences delivered through activities. However, in an effort to enhance the learning efficacy, we chose to use theatrical formats and exercises as a pedagogical tool to teach personal communication capacities and skills. This unconventional approach allowed us to bring the dynamism of real-life communication scenarios into the classroom. The theatre exercises were adopted from the work of Augusto Boal and Konstantin Stanislavsky and were used in two ways: 1. Physical theatre exercises which involved body work and movement-based exercises. 2. Theatre-based communication activities, which involved group activities based around various roles and characters, in case-study scenarios. The theatre activities, specifically tailored for practicing personal communication skills, provided students with a platform to simulate real-life experiences within the safe confines of a classroom, thereby providing them with a unique opportunity to exercise their communication skills in a practical context. Our research included control and experimental groups, with the latter having the Theater-Oriented Pedagogy (TOP) integrated into their curriculum. The data analysis revealed a higher learning performance in personal communication skills among the experimental group. Additionally, students preferred communicative theatre exercises in comparison to physical theatre exercises. This paper, therefore, argues that the learning performance of personal communication skills significantly improves when the theatrical format is employed as an instructional method for engineering students.

An experiential approach to improve learning outcomes in the area of ethics training for mechanical and aerospace engineering upper-class undergraduates has been previously described [1]. Due to the initial positive outcomes and feedback from students, an ethics module comprised of three interactive, experiential exercises introduced into a core-curriculum laboratory class was deployed the following academic year. In this iteration as part of the module, upper-class students from aerospace engineering as well as mechanical engineering were pre-divided into groups of four and asked to select from a curated selection of case studies relevant to their major. They were then asked to create a compelling, three-minute video in which the roles of client, manager, engineer, and any other role deemed relevant, embodied the complexity of making difficult ethical decisions in the selected case study. The assumption in the past had been that students simply needed to learn how to comprehend how stakeholders might perceive a problem from multiple perspectives, and in the communication of these views develop a deeper understanding that would enable them to make sound ethical decisions. While this may be a critical part in teaching ethical decision making, it is clear that another, perhaps more fundamental enabling aspect is in establishing a sense of trust that encouraged deeper reflection and sharing amongst the students which provides the foundation for the subsequent empathetic understanding and communication. Contrary to previous assumptions about the primacy of communication as foundational for the establishment of ethically sound decision-making, this paper discusses the importance of creating an environment of trust wherein leadership in equitable and ethical decision-making can be promoted.

There has been increasing evidence of the long-term benefit of a learner-centered model of pedagogy, in which students are introduced to perspectives outside of school, allowing for more in-depth discussion and exploration of topics and creating meaningful learning opportunities. There is an understandable assumption that increased exposure to the field in which students are training will afford greater insight to the problem-solving challenges they will face in the work force. However, the affordances this methodology provides for engineering students working with corporations and new technologies is complicated by issues of security, intellectual property, and privacy issues. This work in progress paper will describe the student outcomes and the effect of generating an experiential approach to communicating and addressing complex ethical problems, and arriving at transdisciplinary solutions.

This Work in Progress paper notes there is a growing awareness that humankind is not on a sustainable path and there is rising pressure for technological systems to positively contribute to our social condition and protect our natural environment. This paper describes a novel approach to teaching ethically-informed decision making in an engineering educational setting. Ethics had previously been taught by one of the authors in a three-part module. In an effort to re-contextualize and bring to life the ad hoc quality that drives decision-making in the working environment – that is, without knowing the immediate outcome - a new rubric was deployed. This paper describes the student outcomes and the effect of generating an experiential approach to communicating and addressing complex ethical problems and arriving at transdisciplinary solutions.

This Work in Progress paper notes that the 21st century is a time of existential challenges and great social change. It is an anthropogenic era in which human society is firmly at the center of change at all scales. The future of our civilization depends on the ability of humankind to respond to these challenges. Whereas technology was once seen as the solution to these challenges, it has become evident that only by coupling technology in an appropriate cultural context can it be successful. The Anthropology, Performance, and Technology (APT) program is an intersectional bridge between these three disciplines designed to nurture the creation of innovative solutions to socially relevant problems in the 21st century. This paper describes the vision and objectives of the APT program, and the current status.