Collaborative Research: Creating a National Network of Engineering Ambassadors: A Professional Development Program with an Outreach Mission

合作研究：创建全国工程大使网络：具有外展使命的专业发展计划

• 批准号: 1323230
• 负责人: Karen Thole
• 金额: $ 50万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-09-01 至 2017-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1323230&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Creating; National; Network

This project addresses the need for a more diverse enrollment in engineering by creating a national network of the Engineering Ambassador Programs that are currently under way at Penn State, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), the University of Connecticut (UConn), and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). These programs develop the communication and leadership skills of undergraduate engineers by having them perform an outreach mission to middle and high schools. The Engineering Ambassador Programs place the right messenger - engineering students who have been taught advanced presentation skills - with the right message - messages about engineering from Changing the Conversation, a study done by the National Academy of Engineering - in front of middle and high school students. An NSF workshop grant was used to train 2-4 engineering ambassadors at 17 other geographically diverse institutions. Now the project is expanding the network by increasing ten-fold the 2-4 ambassadors at these 17 pilot programs. This expansion has two key goals: (1) providing valuable communication and leadership skills to additional engineering students who are becoming Ambassadors, and (2) having those Ambassadors speak to middle and high school students to further increase the diversity of students entering engineering. This project is determining whether the success that the Engineering Ambassador programs have had on the professional development of Ambassadors at Penn State, RPI, UConn, and WPI will transfer to 16 additional institutions across the United States. The project is empowering 500 undergraduate engineers, most of whom are from under-represented groups, with advanced presentation skills, such as the assertion-evidence approach to slide design. These 500 undergraduates are then creating and delivering well-crafted presentations to more than 70,000 students in middle and high schools across the United States. Because these presentations carry the messages of Changing the Conversation, these presentations are increasing interest in engineering among those students. Moreover, more than 750 science and math teachers in these middle and high schools are being influenced by the presentations and they are being placed in a position to deliver those messages after the Ambassadors have left.

该项目通过创建工程大使计划的全国网络来满足工程招生的需求，工程大使计划目前正在宾夕法尼亚州立大学、伦斯勒理工学院(RPI)、康涅狄格大学(UConn)和伍斯特理工学院(WPI)进行。这些项目通过让本科生工程师在初中和高中执行外展任务来培养他们的沟通和领导技能。工程大使计划将合适的信使--学习了高级演示技能的工程学学生--与正确的信息--由美国国家工程院完成的一项研究--改变对话中关于工程的信息--放在初中生和高中生面前。国家科学基金会的一笔讲习班赠款被用于培训另外17个不同地区的机构的2-4名工程大使。现在，该项目正在通过将这17个试点项目的2-4名大使增加十倍来扩大网络。这一扩展有两个主要目标：(1)为更多即将成为大使的工科学生提供宝贵的沟通和领导技能，以及(2)让这些大使向初中生和高中生演讲，以进一步增加进入工程学的学生的多样性。该项目将决定工程大使项目在宾夕法尼亚州立大学、RPI、康涅狄格州大学和WPI的大使职业发展方面取得的成功是否会转移到全美另外16所院校。该项目正在让500名本科生工程师掌握高级演示技能，例如幻灯片设计的断言-证据方法，他们中的大多数来自代表性不足的群体。然后，这500名本科生将为全美7万多名初高中学生制作并发布精心制作的演示文稿。由于这些演示文稿传达了改变对话的信息，这些演示文稿在这些学生中对工程学的兴趣越来越大。此外，这些初中和高中的750多名科学和数学教师受到了演讲的影响，他们被安排在大使离开后传递这些信息。