Assessing student learning in design courses is essential for giving them feedback on their integration of a wide range of knowledge and skills. This paper describes the Team Design Skills Growth Survey, which is easy to administer and interpret in discerning design capabilities of students in introductory engineering design classes. This tool measures student perceptions about their professional growth and correlates these with perceived course emphasis on learning outcomes for design skills, teamwork skills, and communication skills endorsed by the Washington Council for Engineering and Related Technology Education (WCERTE).Several versions of the Team Design Skills Growth Survey have been used over the last ten years in sections of an introductory engineering design course at Tacoma Community College. Results generated from the survey are consistent with pre-and post-testing, verbal protocol analysis, team interviews, and a variety of reflective writing assignments. Results include an analysis of the difference between the means for class-averaged growth and class-averaged emphasis in each of the WCERTE outcome areas.For students, the greatest impact of using this tool is increasing their understanding of their learning with respect to the intended learning outcomes. As such, the Team Design Skills Growth Survey can support efforts to increase students' self-confidence in engineering, leading to better retention of engineering students. For faculty, the greatest impact of using this tool is measuring the value-added of different activities in introductory engineering design classes, which can be used to improve course design, provide insight to class management issues, and determine the appropriateness of performance indicators. This paper also addresses best practices for implementing and expanding the Team Design Skills Growth Survey and extending it to other disciplines.

Assessing and grading student performance in design courses often conflict with one another and often generate uncertainty about their effectiveness in promoting and measuring learning. This paper describes how to effectively administer and facilitate a half-hour, open-forum, teamreview session that validates assumptions about team member contributions and aligns grading with mutually understood performance criteria. The negotiation phase of the team interview rarely changes the instructor's assignment of individual grades from previous sources of information. However, the process has been found to significantly increase students' understanding and acceptance of the grades they receive. Students and faculty gain insight about circumstances leading to less than expected team member performance and how the lessons learned can be used to promote better learning opportunities for future teams. Included are (i) team roles and responsibilities, (ii) team attitude and climate, (iii) time management, (iv) team member contributions and rewards, (v) internal and external communication, and (vi) setting and achieving goals. The process also provides an opportunity to address and resolve lingering issues that affect team performance that are likely to go unprocessed by the team at the end of their design experience. Multiple instructors have effectively used the process to assign valid grades to team members in introductory engineering design and physical science classes. All of these courses feature cooperative learning activities and open-ended projects throughout the term.