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）资助的。这个工程教育研究奖给弗吉尼亚理工学院和州立大学将聘请研究人员开发，评估和传播一个过程模型，教学生如何在学习环境中与多个学科合作。一个理论驱动的设计思维模型将开发，实施和测试。这项研究在理论上是由跨学科作为个人技能和跨学科合作作为来自不同学科的两个或多个人之间的互动过程的工作。一个混合方法的案例研究方法将被用来评估跨学科团队，学习环境的建设，以及综合，跨学科的设计过程的教学方法。这项研究的结果将有助于跨学科合作的性质，以及如何教工程师的理论和应用工作。培养更多为跨学科合作做好充分准备的工程专业毕业生是全球经济中具有竞争力的劳动力所必需的。在这项研究中，学生合作的过程和产品将通过设计方法和技术创新推进普适计算领域。

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.