Revolutionizing Roles to Reimagine Integrated Systems of Engineering Formation

彻底改变角色，重新构想工程形成的集成系统

• 批准号: 1519438
• 负责人: Anthony Maciejewski
• 金额: $ 198.87万
• 依托单位: Colorado State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-07-01 至 2021-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1519438&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Revolutionizing; Roles; Reimagine; Integrated; Systems

The current engineering educational system fails in two fundamentally critical ways. First, students who have the desire and aptitude to become accomplished and productive engineers are abandoning the discipline in startling numbers. Second, students who graduate are frequently not prepared for the realities of their chosen profession and are switching careers at alarming rates. A team of educators at Colorado State University propose a new organizational model that looks at the undergraduate electrical and computer engineering (ECE) degree as an integrated system, breaking down the barriers inherent in higher education structures and implementing novel pedagogical approaches that allow students of all backgrounds to see the utility of their knowledge and connections to professional practice. At the pedagogical level, the new approach combines rigor and flexibility in engineering education to improve student efficacy and content knowledge integration through building communities of learning and practice. At the organizational level, the transformational approach aims to energize faculty to collaboratively weave important knowledge and application threads throughout the curriculum, while utilizing a new learning model that connects disparate anchoring concepts. Whether demonstrating the relevance of content through research, labs, or hands-on projects, the ECE faculty will work as a multifaceted team, ensuring that every educational component gives consideration to the big picture, while simultaneously instilling a deep knowledge of the discipline. Colorado State's approach is expected to reverse the attrition trend in engineering education and fill the engineering pathway with motivated students of diverse backgrounds. These students will have the mastery of fundamental engineering knowledge, while being ready and excited to apply their knowledge to real-world applications. The pedagogical and organizational innovations provide a broad framework for transformative and sustainable changes in engineering departments, which are necessary to produce professional engineers of the future. Moreover, the approach builds a community of universities, community colleges, and industry partners for wide participation of effective teaching and learning. CSU's approach will propel a new engineering workforce that generates superior ideas, products, and services, ultimately contributing to the nation's economic vitality and global competitiveness. Colorado State's proposed model incorporates transformative innovation in engineering education that yields an inclusive environment that is characterized by rigor and flexibility. The new approach utilizes learning studios with modules that build on the concept of "nanocourses" and emphasizes knowledge integration - which is a learning model that is well grounded in pedagogy and supported by education research. CSU's efforts will span the entire undergraduate electrical and computer engineering experience, with special attention to the critical technical core of the middle two years. While area-specific learning modules have been in existence for years, such modules are usually supplements to the core curriculum and do not typically cover fundamental subjects vital to comprehending abstract topics; nor do they stitch together anchoring concepts to lay the groundwork for real-world applications. Key to the new approach is its: latitudinal knowledge integration, which will be used to link fundamental concepts and illustrate the utility of topics using applications students are familiar with (e.g., the smartphone, digital camera, and high-speed internet), consonant with research recommendations from the cognitive sciences. Furthermore, the pedagogical innovation of the new approach is accompanied by organizational redefinition of roles within an engineering department - based on established behavioral science principles coupled with rigorous evaluations and research methods specifically developed for this project. The research findings will advance theoretical development of engineering education and organizational development frameworks, while also providing practical case-study examples of change interventions for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Furthermore, successful porting of organizational science principles to higher education may provide validity evidence that higher education can be compared to other organizations, such as those found in private industry.

当前的工程教育体系在两个根本关键方面失败了。首先，有愿望和能力成为有成就和多产的工程师的学生，正在以惊人的数量放弃这一学科。其次，毕业的学生往往对自己选择的职业的现实没有做好准备，转行的速度令人震惊。科罗拉多州立大学的一组教育工作者提出了一种新的组织模式，将本科电气和计算机工程(欧洲经委会)学位视为一个综合系统，打破了高等教育结构固有的障碍，实施了新颖的教学方法，让所有背景的学生都能看到他们的知识和与专业实践的联系的用处。在教学层面，新的方法结合了工程教育的严谨性和灵活性，通过建立学习和实践社区来提高学生的效能和内容知识的整合。在组织层面，这种变革性的方法旨在激励教师在整个课程中协作地编织重要的知识和应用程序，同时利用一种新的学习模式，将不同的固定概念联系起来。无论是通过研究、实验室还是实践项目来展示内容的相关性，欧洲经委会的教职员工都将作为一个多方面的团队工作，确保每个教育组成部分都考虑到大局，同时向学生灌输对该学科的深入了解。科罗拉多州立大学的做法预计将扭转工程学教育的自然减员趋势，并用不同背景的积极学生填补工程学道路上的空缺。这些学生将掌握基本的工程知识，同时准备并兴奋地将他们的知识应用于现实世界。教学和组织创新为工程学系的变革性和可持续变革提供了一个广泛的框架，这是培养未来专业工程师所必需的。此外，该方法还建立了一个由大学、社区学院和行业合作伙伴组成的社区，以便广泛参与有效的教学。CSU的方法将推动一支新的工程劳动力，产生卓越的想法、产品和服务，最终为国家的经济活力和全球竞争力做出贡献。科罗拉多州立大学提出的模式在工程教育中融入了变革性的创新，产生了一个以严格和灵活为特征的包容性环境。新方法利用带有以“纳米课程”概念为基础的模块的学习工作室，并强调知识整合--这是一种以教育学为基础并得到教育研究支持的学习模式。CSU的努力将跨越整个本科电气和计算机工程经验，特别关注中间两年的关键技术核心。虽然针对特定领域的学习模块已经存在多年，但这种模块通常是对核心课程的补充，通常不会涵盖对理解抽象主题至关重要的基本科目；它们也不会将固定的概念结合在一起，为现实世界的应用奠定基础。新方法的关键是ITS：横向知识整合，它将用于将基本概念联系起来，并使用学生熟悉的应用程序(例如，智能手机、数码相机和高速互联网)来说明主题的实用性，这与认知科学的研究建议一致。此外，新方法的教学创新伴随着对工程部门内部角色的组织重新定义--基于既定的行为科学原则，以及专门为该项目开发的严格评估和研究方法。研究成果将推动工程教育和组织发展框架的理论发展，同时也为科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)教育的变革干预提供实践案例研究。此外，成功地将组织科学原理移植到高等教育中，可能会提供有效性证据，证明高等教育可以与其他组织进行比较，例如那些在私营行业中发现的组织。