Collaborative Research: Learning & Teaching Engineering Dynamics Through Interactive Simulations

合作研究：学习

• 批准号: 1432258
• 负责人: Vincent Prantil
• 金额: $ 5.98万
• 依托单位: Milwaukee School of Engineering
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-01 至 2019-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1432258&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Learning; & Teaching

This collaborative project between Northern Illinois University, The Milwaukee School of Engineering, and Rutgers University intends to improve student learning in sophomore-level engineering dynamics. Engineering dynamics is a required topic for a large fraction of all engineering majors including mechanical, aerospace, biomechanical, and civil engineering. The material is challenging and many students struggle to master the important concepts encountered in this course. The project will utilize a virtual reality simulated environment to present interactive challenges that require application of engineering dynamics principles to solve. This interactive environment, called Spumone, was developed under previous NSF-sponsored projects. In pilot studies, use of Spumone by students has been shown to improve learning of engineering dynamics concepts. The current project will expand the use of this simulated environment to evaluate the effectiveness in a wider range of students. The primary purpose of the project is to take an educational simulation that was designed and tested in the classrooms of a single educator, and broaden its reach to the classrooms of other educators. In doing so, the investigators will discover which features of the simulation-based learning environment favor broader adoption, and which impose barriers. Lessons learned will enable even wider adoption of a promising intervention, designed for a critical sophomore-level engineering course that tens of thousands of students take each year. It is expected that lessons learned will be transferable to other efforts to build video-based STEM learning environments. Using virtual reality and complex simulated environments has been shown to engage teens and young adults in problem-solving tasks that are often long, difficult, and require high level critical thinking skills. The degree of engagement produced by video simulations extends across all races and socioeconomic backgrounds. Some of these simulations are found to appeal to both males and females. The investigators working on this project have been developing simulated environments for use in teaching core mechanical engineering courses. In their studies, they found that students who learned in the simulated video environment, achieved higher scores on standard concept tests, compared to students who took the courses that did not employ simulations. Furthermore, students who learned with the simulation were more engaged, more motivated, and much more likely to pursue advanced studies in the same subject. A pivotal step in bringing simulation-based engineering education to a wider audience is that of making the simulation easy to adopt by other educators. In this project a group of potential adopters will work together to modify their courses to incorporate the simulation. At the same time the potential adopters will inform the simulation designers how to modify the application to best fit into their courses. In the process the project investigators will perform an educational test in which they determine if the gains in learning and student engagement achieved by the developer can be replicated by the new adopters. Evaluation of the project will provide information about the effectiveness of video-based STEM learning environments and the extent to which this simulation is easy to adopt by other educators. An implementation evaluation component will assess whether the project is being conducted as originally envisioned. A progress evaluation component will assess progress toward answering the design and research questions, as well as progress toward the goal of successfully implementing Spumone in the alternate settings. Summative evaluation will assess the overall success of the project in rigorously answering the design and research questions as well as assessment of the goal of implementing video-based STEM learning environments on a larger scale.

北方伊利诺伊大学、密尔沃基工程学院和罗格斯大学之间的这一合作项目旨在提高学生在大学级工程动态方面的学习。 工程动力学是所有工程专业的一大部分，包括机械，航空航天，生物力学和土木工程的必修科目。 材料是具有挑战性的，许多学生努力掌握这门课程中遇到的重要概念。 该项目将利用虚拟现实模拟环境来呈现需要应用工程动力学原理来解决的互动挑战。 这个名为Spumone的交互式环境是在以前NSF赞助的项目下开发的。在试点研究中，学生使用Spumone已被证明可以改善工程动力学概念的学习。目前的项目将扩大使用这种模拟环境，以评估更广泛的学生的有效性。该项目的主要目的是采取一个教育模拟，设计和测试在一个单一的教育工作者的教室，并扩大其影响到其他教育工作者的教室。在这样做的过程中，研究人员将发现基于模拟的学习环境的哪些功能有利于更广泛的采用，以及哪些设置了障碍。 吸取的经验教训将使更广泛地采用一种有希望的干预措施，这种干预措施是为每年有数万名学生参加的关键的走廊级工程课程设计的。预计所吸取的经验教训将可用于其他努力，以建立基于视频的STEM学习环境。使用虚拟现实和复杂的模拟环境已被证明可以让青少年和年轻人参与解决问题的任务，这些任务通常是漫长的，困难的，需要高水平的批判性思维技能。视频模拟产生的参与程度跨越了所有种族和社会经济背景。 其中一些模拟被发现对男性和女性都有吸引力。从事该项目的研究人员一直在开发用于教学核心机械工程课程的模拟环境。在他们的研究中，他们发现在模拟视频环境中学习的学生在标准概念测试中取得了更高的分数，而不是参加没有使用模拟的课程的学生。此外，通过模拟学习的学生更投入，更有动力，更有可能在同一学科中继续深造。 将基于仿真的工程教育带给更广泛的受众的关键一步是使仿真易于被其他教育者采用。 在这个项目中，一组潜在的采用者将共同努力，修改他们的课程，以纳入模拟。 与此同时，潜在的采用者将告知模拟设计师如何修改应用程序以最好地适应他们的课程。 在这个过程中，项目调查人员将进行一项教育测试，确定开发人员在学习和学生参与方面取得的成果是否可以被新的采用者复制。对该项目的评估将提供有关基于视频的STEM学习环境的有效性的信息，以及这种模拟在多大程度上容易被其他教育工作者采用。执行情况评价部分将评估项目是否按照最初设想进行。进展评估组件将评估回答设计和研究问题的进展，以及在替代环境中成功实施Spumone目标的进展。总结性评估将评估该项目在严格回答设计和研究问题方面的总体成功情况，以及评估在更大范围内实施基于视频的STEM学习环境的目标。