Collaborative Research: ITEST-Strategies: Human-Centered Robotics Experiences for Exploring Engineering, Computer Science, and Society

几十年来，让更多来自城市和农村地区的学生参与STEM领域和职业一直是国家STEM教育改革工作的最前沿。研究表明，让这些学生参与与他们日常生活相关的STEM活动，对于提高他们的动机、兴趣、学习和参与STEM至关重要。该项目将通过旨在帮助400名初中和高中学生掌握科学原理和技术设计的复杂性的工程和计算机科学活动来满足这一需求。目标是激励目标人群中更多的学生，使他们了解这些原则和设计战略如何有助于建立一个更强大的教育和技术社会。为了做到这一点，该项目将使用一个教学和学习模型，将以人为本的机器人技术和远程呈现为基础的主题活动集成在一个基于问题的学习和系统思维的环境中。在这个项目中，以人为中心的机器人技术将涉及日常使用的机器人技术和应用的开发，而远程呈现机器人将能够在巨大的距离上实现更好的通信，操作和探索。这一双重战略使得所提出的技术方法与阿拉斯加学生的日常需求高度相关。该项目将由来自费尔班克斯的阿拉斯加大学电气工程和计算机科学系以及布卢明顿的印第安纳州大学信息与计算学院和学习与技术研究中心的学生和教师导师组成的跨学科团队进行。通过这一合作伙伴的努力，研究团队将开发一个课程，解决以人为本的机器人技术和社会方面的问题，以及学生将学习的工程和计算机科学概念的基础。每年，学生将积极参与为期9个月的基于问题的学习策略，使用基于Arduino微控制器的两个基本开放式架构平台。学生将能够通过设计变化和添加新的传感器，执行器，程序部件和其他技术相关的功能来定制这些平台。用户友好的软件将帮助教师和导师帮助学生进行设计和重新设计。通过这种方法，学生将获得STEM知识和技能，这些知识和技能将对他们自己的个人生活有用，并与其他学生分享，这些学生可能患有慢性病，居住在偏远地区，居住在较低的48个州，甚至通过先前NSF支持的努力建立的联系。因此，该项目将帮助学生开发基于技术的产品，以某种有意义的方式适应人们的日常环境，需求和实践，这反过来又可以提高学生对STEM和STEM职业的动机和兴趣。

Involving more students from urban and rural areas in STEM fields and careers has been at the forefront of national STEM education reform efforts for decades. Research shows that engaging these students in STEM activities relevant to their everyday lives is critical to increasing their motivation, interest, learning, and participation in STEM. This project will address this need through engineering and computer science activities aimed at helping 400 middle and high school students grasp the intricacies of scientific principles and technology design. The goal is to inspire and prepare a greater number of students from the targeted population to understand how these principles and design strategies contribute to a stronger educational and technological society. To do this, the project will use a teaching and learning model that will integrate human-centered robotics and telepresence theme-based activities in a problem-based learning and systems thinking environment. In this project, human-centered robotics will involve the development of robotics technologies and applications for everyday use while telepresence robots will enable better communication, operation, and exploration across enormous distances. This dual strategy makes the proposed technological approach highly relevant to the daily needs of students in Alaska.The project will be conducted by an interdisciplinary team of students and faculty mentors from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Departments at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and from the School of Informatics and Computing and the Center for Research on Learning and Technology at Indiana University at Bloomington. Through this partner-effort, the research team will develop a curriculum that addresses the technical and societal aspects of the human-centered robotics and telepresence that underlie the engineering and computer science concepts students will learn about. Each year, students will actively engage in a 9-month problem-based learning strategy using two basic open-architecture platforms based on the Arduino microcontroller. Students will be able to customize these platforms through design variations and with the addition of new sensors, actuators, program parts, and other technology-related functions. User-friendly software will help teachers and mentors assist students with their designs and redesigns. Through this approach, students will gain STEM knowledge and skills that will be useful to their own individual lives and for sharing with other students, who might be chronically ill, reside in remote places, live in the lower 48 states, or even internationally via ties established through prior NSF-supported efforts. Hence, this project will help student develop technology-based products adaptable to peoples' daily environments, needs, and practices in some meaningful way, which in turn, could increase student's motivation and interest in STEM and STEM careers.