Building New Engineering EducationTheory and Practice for Interdisciplinary Pervasive Computing Design

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)提供资金的。这项授予弗吉尼亚理工学院和州立大学的工程教育研究奖将雇用研究人员开发、评估和传播一个过程模型，教会学生如何在多学科的学习环境中进行协作。一个理论驱动的设计思维模型将被开发、实施和测试。从理论上讲，这项研究是通过将跨学科作为一项个人技能和将跨学科协作作为来自不同学科的两个或更多人之间的互动过程来进行的。将使用混合方法案例研究方法来评估跨学科合作、学习环境建设和综合跨学科设计过程的教学方法。这项研究的结果将有助于关于跨学科协作的性质以及如何将其传授给工程师的理论和应用工作。培养更多为跨学科合作做好准备的工程学毕业生，对于全球经济中具有竞争力的劳动力来说是必要的。这项研究中的学生合作过程和产品将通过设计方法和技术创新推动普适计算领域的发展。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This engineering education research award to Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University will employ researchers to develop, assess, and disseminate a process model for teaching students how to collaborate in learning environments with multiple disciplines. A theory-driven model of design thinking will be developed, implemented, and tested. The research is theoretically informed by work on interdisciplinarity as an individual skill and interdisciplinary collaboration as an interactive process between two or more people from different disciplines. A mixed-methods case study approach will be used to assess pedagogical approaches to interdisciplinary teaming, construction of learning environments, and integrated, interdisciplinary design processes. The results of this research will contribute to theoretical and applied work on the nature of interdisciplinary collaboration and how it is taught to engineers. Producing more engineering graduates who are well prepared for interdisciplinary collaboration is necessary for a competitive workforce in the global economy. The process and products of the student collaborations in this research will advance the field of pervasive computing, both through design methods and technical innovations.