Board # 60: Learning to Make Change by Revolutionizing Departments: Initial Team Experiences
Board # 60: Learning to Make Change by Revolutionizing Departments: Initial Team Experiences
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发表时间：
2017
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通讯作者：
Julia M. Williams
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作者：
Ella L. Ingram;Elizabeth Litzler;Cara Margherio;Julia M. Williams
美国国家科学基金会的计划“革命工程和计算机科学部门”（RED）的推出提供了一个无与伦比的机会，从一开始就检查行动的变化。该计划要求受助人实现“克服本科课程中长期存在的问题所需的重大可持续变化，并教育准备解决21世纪问题的工程和计算机科学学生的包容性社区”，目标是创建“连贯的专业和技术线程”。 确保学生在他们的学科更有效和更有意义地发展深入的知识“（NSF征求）。到目前为止，13个团队已经开始了他们的项目，其规模和范围从重新规划课程单元到跨聚合部门的协调变化，再到实验性的共同课程机会。制定这一变化的教师团队代表有意跨学科的群体，与学科专家与社会科学家和工程教育研究人员合作。他们的工作得到了我们的项目RED奖励行动研究的支持，因为我们协调获奖者的活动，并创建跨机构分析，以开发更大的经验教训，与工程教育界分享。这里描述的工作探讨了RED团队成员在准备实施变革方面的初步概念，这些概念是通过焦点小组访谈和在获奖后六个月内进行的非正式讨论获得的。我们发现，团队在项目开始时报告了重要的谈判。首先，各小组报告说，需要重新确定他们对项目本身的集体理解，包括项目如何符合其机构目前的业务设想，因为在最后提交后已经过去了近9个月。第二，团队协商沟通策略和向外部各方（例如，部门成员的其余部分）传递关键信息。大型项目（如本计划资助的项目）的推出取决于有效的沟通方法;制定有效的方法需要团队成员之间进行大量讨论。最后，各团队在如何实施其变革指导理论方面遇到了挑战（提案过程中要求纳入变革指导理论）。对于每一点，我们说明了从团队讨论的叙述，并将这些点连接到更大的问题，教师发展的变革推动者和团队成员。鉴于不断增加的速度和规模的变化，在工程教育的呼吁，本文提供了可操作的建议，变革代理人和团队协调员。
The launch of NSF’s program “Revolutionizing Engineering and Computer Science Departments” (RED) provided an unparalleled opportunity to examine change in action from its inception. This program charges grantees to achieve “significant sustainable changes necessary to overcome longstanding issues in their undergraduate programs and educate inclusive communities of engineering and computer science students prepared to solve 21st-century challenges” with the goal of creating “coherent professional and technical threads... to ensure that students develop deep knowledge in their discipline more effectively and meaningfully” (NSF Solicitation). To date, thirteen teams have commenced their projects, which range in scale and scope from re-visioning curriculum units to coordinated change across aggregated departments to experimental co-curricular opportunities. The faculty teams enacting this change represent intentionally interdisciplinary groups, with disciplinary experts working with social scientists and engineering education researchers. Their work is supported by our project RED Participatory Action Research in that we coordinate activities across awardees and also create cross-institution analyses to develop larger lessons to share with the engineering education community. The work described here explores the initial conceptions of RED team members with respect to readiness to enact change, captured via focus group interviews and informal discussions conducted within six months of their award being granted. We found that the teams reported significant negotiation at the onset of the project. First, teams reported the need to re-situate their collective understanding of the project itself, including how the project fit into the current vision of the operations of their institution, since almost nine months had passed following final submission. Second, teams negotiated communication strategies and key messaging to outside parties (e.g. the remainder of the department members). The roll-out of large scale projects like the ones funded in this program hinges on an effective communication approach; developing an effective approach required significant discussion among team members. Finally, teams experienced challenges relating to how they implemented their guiding theories of change (inclusion of which was mandated in the proposal process). For each point, we illustrate with narrative taken from team discussions and connect these points to larger issues of faculty development as change agents and team members. Given the repeated calls for increasing the rate and scale of change in engineering education, this paper contributes actionable recommendations for change agents and team coordinators.