Teamwork in engineering is an accepted professional practice and its application is common across the industry. The importance of students developing appropriate teamwork skills and attributes has been recognised in many universities and is now also accepted as a common theme in engineering education. Yet, despite this recognition preparation of students for team participation is often minimal and frequently involves principally 'learning by doing'. Lecturer and tutor support within this process may also be limited, by a number of factors including increasing class sizes and already densely packed curricula, to one or two lectures on teamwork only or simply to observation and limited intervention of group work taking place in class time. This paper examines an innovative approach to the learning and teaching of teamwork introduced by The School of Mechanical Engineering in one Australian University. In this approach first year students' research, critically analyse, discuss and apply learning in engineering teamwork, personality type theory and learning style theory to their class work and their team assignments. Student responses to this approach, from separate first year cohorts over three years, is also examined.
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