IUSE/PFE:RED A&I Curriculum integration through collaborative teaching and mentoring: adapting an integrated system for engineering formation

IUSE/PFE：红色 A

• 批准号: 2235345
• 负责人: Antoinette Maniatty
• 金额: $ 99.89万
• 依托单位: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-08-01 至 2027-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2235345&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: IUSE; PFE; RED; A&I; Curriculum

Engineering education faces significant challenges due to rapid technological advances, the continuous evolution of base knowledge, and rapid changes in the way students perceive and process information. This environment motivates the continuous development of the engineering curriculum and teaching methods. One difficulty arising from the traditional instruction methods is that courses are taught independently by different instructors, with little effort to underline the relationships and commonalities between disciplines. Another concern is related to the limited access to hands-on activities and project-based learning in most colleges. This project will introduce several curricular changes supported by a radical change of teaching methods and culture from an individualistic approach to a more comprehensive, collaborative teaching method, with connections between disciplines being continuously established and project-based learning becoming the norm. This is expected to lead to a significant enhancement of the student experience, increased student-teacher interaction, increased student retention and development of student skills needed to expand our nation’s technical lead and innovation infrastructure.This project aims to change the culture in the Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering (MANE) Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) from a traditional engineering siloed approach to an integrated and collaborative approach. The central research questions addressed in this project are: 1) how student learning outcomes and learning experience are impacted by the transformation of the department culture in relationship to pedagogy; and 2) how successful is the replication of a pedagogical model developed in a single-program department of a large public university when applied to a multi-program department of a smaller private college. These research questions will be addressed by replicating the successful implementation of Colorado State University (CSU) NSF-supported project “Revolutionizing Roles to Reimagine Integrated Systems of Engineering Formation”. This program transformed engineering education by enabling students to better understand how different disciplines are coming together and course topics are applied in practical engineering problems. Important components of this program include nanocourses (or “just in time” knowledge delivery), knowledge integration activities between disciplines within the curriculum, and vertically integrated and open-ended projects. We will follow a multi-method research approach to understand the implementation of the CSU program in our department. We will use a natural quasi-experimental design with mixed-methods (observation, focus groups, interviews, surveys, secondary data analysis) over a period of four years, across all levels of education, for assessing the impact of the implementation. Our primary expected outcomes over the short term are a changed pedagogical culture among faculty, an increase in student engagement and learning, and a better student understanding of seemingly disparate disciplines. Over the long term, we anticipate an increase in retention of engineering students, especially underrepresented minority students. Should the RPI experiment be as successful as the CSU one, it will be a demonstration that the model is viable to be implemented more broadly.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

由于技术的快速进步，基础知识的持续发展以及学生感知和过程信息的方式，工程教育面临重大挑战。这种环境激发了工程课程和教学方法的持续发展。传统的教学方法引起的一个困难是，课程是由不同的教师独立教授的，而努力很少强调关系和共同点，另一个问题与大多数大学的动手活动和基于项目的学习的有限访问有关。该项目将介绍几项现代变化，从个人主义方法到更全面，协作的教学方法的根本性变化，而文化的根本变化，而学科之间的联系和基于项目的学习成为一种常态。大幅增强学生体验，增加学生教师的互动，增加学生的保留和扩大我们国家技术领导和创新基础设施所需的学生技能。该项目的目的是改变伦斯勒理工学院（RPI）的机械，航空航天和核工程（MANE）部门的文化，从传统的工具工程师的方法中，并将其从传统的工程师使用到集成的方法中。该项目中解决的中心研究问题是：1）学生学习成果和学习经验如何受到部门文化与教学法的关系的转变； 2）当大型公立大学的单程序系中开发的教学模型的复制是多么成功，当时应用于较小的私立大学的多程序系。这些研究问题将通过复制科罗拉多州立大学（CSU）NSF支持的项目的成功实施“革命性的角色，以重新想象工程形成的综合系统”。该计划通过使学生能够更好地了解不同学科的方式以及课程主题在实践工程问题中应用，从而改变了工程教育。该计划的重要组成部分包括纳米库（或“及时”知识交付），课程中学科之间的知识整合活动以及垂直整合和开放式项目。我们将遵循一种多方法研究方法，以了解我们部门中CSU计划的实施。我们将在四年的所有教育中使用混合方法（观察，焦点小组，访谈，调查，次要数据分析）的天然准实验设计（观察，焦点小组，访谈，调查，次要数据分析）来评估实施的影响。短期内，我们的主要预期结果是教师之间的教学文化变化，学生的参与和学习的增加以及对看似不同的学科的更好理解。从长远来看，我们预计工程专业学生的保留率会增加，尤其是代表性不足的少数民族学生。如果RPI实验与CSU One一样成功，将证明该模型可行，可以更广泛地实施。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响来审查标准来通过评估来诚实地支持支持。