Collaborative Research: Learning & Teaching Engineering Dynamics Through Interactive Simulations

这个由北伊利诺伊大学、密尔沃基工程学院和罗格斯大学合作的项目旨在改善学生在大二水平的工程动力学方面的学习。工程动力学是包括机械、航空航天、生物力学和土木工程在内的大部分工程专业的必修课。材料具有挑战性，许多学生很难掌握本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交互挑战。这种名为Spumone的互动环境是在之前NSF赞助的项目下开发的。在初步研究中，学生使用Spumone已被证明可以改善工程动力学概念的学习。目前的项目将扩大这种模拟环境的使用，以在更广泛的学生中评估效果。该项目的主要目的是采用在单一教育者的教室中设计和测试的教育模拟，并将其扩展到其他教育者的教室。在这样做的过程中，调查人员将发现基于模拟的学习环境的哪些特征有利于更广泛的采用，以及哪些特征会造成障碍。吸取的经验教训将使一项有前景的干预措施得到更广泛的采用，这项干预措施是为一门关键的二年级工程课程设计的，每年有数万名学生参加这门课程。预计吸取的经验教训将可用于建立基于视频的STEM学习环境的其他努力。使用虚拟现实和复杂的模拟环境已被证明能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、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。致力于该项目的研究人员一直在开发用于教授核心机械工程课程的模拟环境。在他们的研究中，他们发现，与没有使用模拟视频环境的学生相比，在模拟视频环境中学习的学生在标准概念测试中获得了更高的分数。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继续深造。要将基于模拟的工程教育带给更广泛的受众，关键的一步是使模拟易于被其他教育工作者采用。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者如何修改应用程序以最适合他们的课程。在这个过程中，项目调查人员将进行一项教育测试，以确定开发人员在学习和学生参与度方面获得的收益是否可以被新的采用者复制。对该项目的评估将提供关于基于视频的STEM学习环境的有效性以及这种模拟在多大程度上容易被其他教育工作者采用的信息。执行情况评价部分将评估项目是否按最初设想进行。进度评价部分将评估在回答设计和研究问题方面取得的进展，以及在替代环境中成功实施Spumone的目标取得的进展。总结性评价将评估项目在严格回答设计和研究问题方面的总体成功，以及对更大规模实施基于视频的STEM学习环境的目标的评估。

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.