Massachusetts Engineering Innovation and Dissemination Community (MEIDC)

教育研究人员、实践者、行业代表和政策制定者越来越致力于让所有K-12学生和教师都能获得工程教育。这一快速项目旨在了解哪种类型的协作基础设施将最好地支持NSF获奖者参与创新、协同的研究、开发和传播活动，使工程技术人员能够在K-12教与学中发挥这一重要作用。以马萨诸塞州(特别是大波士顿地区)为重点，塔夫茨大学和EDC的研究人员将对K-12工程教育进行景观分析，突出机会、差距和资源，并确定NSF获奖者和其他利益相关者之间重叠的利益领域，这些领域可能转化为有目的的活动的重点。虽然马萨诸塞州(尤其是大波士顿地区)是NSF资助的K-12工程教育研究和开发活动的主要中心，但在该地区的机构中从事工程教育的NSF获奖者并不经常会面和合作，以努力改善工程教育，而且目前没有基础设施来持续支持NSF获奖者和K-12工程教育的跨部门合作。因此，对于有关项目来说，这是一个适当的试验台，可以更多地了解基础设施，以支持受资助的研究人员努力加强K-12工程教育。研究人员将同时进行强有力的文献回顾，并采访各部门的关键利益相关者(从NSF获奖者开始)。这一景观分析结果的报告将广泛传播，目的是为该地区和全国的K-12工程教育努力提供信息。

Education researchers, practitioners, industry representatives, and policymakers are increasingly committed to making engineering education accessible to all K-12 students and teachers. This RAPID project is designed to learn what type of collaborative infrastructure would best support NSF awardees in engaging in the innovative, synergistic research, development, and dissemination activities that will enable engineering to fulfill this important role in K-12 teaching and learning. Focusing on Massachusetts (and the greater Boston area in particular), researchers from Tufts University and EDC will conduct a landscape analysis of K-12 engineering education, highlighting opportunities, gaps, and resources, and identifying areas of overlapping interests among NSF awardees and other stakeholders that may translate into a focus for purposeful activities. While Massachusetts (and the greater Boston area in particular) serves as a major center for NSF-funded K-12 engineering education research and development activities, NSF awardees engaged in engineering education and housed in institutions around the area do not routinely meet and collaborate as a group in an effort to improve engineering education, and there is currently no infrastructure in place to support NSF awardees and cross-sector collaboration in K-12 engineering education on an ongoing basis. Thus this is an appropriate testbed for a project concerned to learn more about infrastructures to support funded researchers in efforts to enhance K-12 engineering education. The researchers will concurrently conduct a robust literature review and interview key stakeholders across sectors (starting with NSF awardees). A report of findings from this landscape analysis will be disseminated broadly with the goal of informing K-12 engineering education efforts both in the area and nationally.