CAREER: Investigating the Engineering Expansive Learning Spaces for Boys of Color

这一赠款项目调查了非裔美国男性在工程实践中发展身份和能力的方式。该项目还使用与实践相联系的身份的理论框架，在小学、中学和本科工程三种不同的工程学习环境中，研究了非裔美国男性学生参与、学习和身份形成之间的复杂关系。该项目还包括开发学生在每个背景下参与工程设计实践的案例研究，并比较学生在不同背景下的经历。这些发现可能会影响学校，特别是教育工作者，如何概念化下一代科学标准实践，从而打开这些实践的大门，让人们以更多方面的方式交谈、思考，并在这些环境中突出身份认同工作的关键方面。该项目的优点在于，继续需要对招收和留住工科学生产生积极影响的研究，特别是从代表性不足的社区。通过关注非洲裔美国男性，该项目扩大了对他们可能发展工程实践能力和身份的方式的理解。此外，该项目可能有助于工程教育界了解工程特性的发展，以及促进这些特性形成和转变的学习环境中的不同特征。项目的主要目标是研究和教育活动如下：(A)审查和描述非裔美国人男子工程实践能力和特性之间的关系；(B)审查和描述工程学习环境中影响非裔美国人男子发展能力和特性的因素；以及(C)为设计可扩展的工程学习空间提出假设，以提高非裔美国人男子的能力和特性。该项目在探索学生的工程参与、学习和身份形成之间的复杂关系方面是独特的，以了解非裔美国男性在工程学中的扩展学习生态。在工程教育中，对公平学习空间设计的高度重视将提供更多的见解，可以更广泛地影响学术界。

This grant project investigates the ways in which African American males develop identities and competencies in engineering practices. Using a theoretical framework of practice-linked identities, the project also examines the complex relation between African American male students' engagement, learning, and identity formation in the context of three different engineering learning environments: elementary school, middle school, and undergraduate engineering. The project also involves developing case studies of students' engagement with engineering design practices within each context and comparing students' experiences across contexts. The findings are likely to influence how schools, especially educators, conceptualize Next Generation Science Standard practices, thus opening up these practices to more multifaceted ways of talking, thinking, and engaging and highlighting critical aspects of identity work in these settings. The merit of this project lies in the continued need for research that positively impacts the recruitment and retention of engineering students, particularly from underrepresented communities. By focusing on African American males, the project extends the understandings of the ways in which they may develop engineering practice competencies and identities. Further, the project is likely to contribute to the engineering education community's understanding of the development of engineering identities and the different features within learning environments that foster the formation and transformation of these identities. The key project objectives are the research and educational activities are the following:(a)examine and characterize the relationship between African American males' engineering practice competencies and identities; (b)examine and characterize elements within engineering learning environments that impact African American males' developing competencies and identities; and (c)develop hypotheses for the design of expansive engineering learning spaces for increasing African American males' competencies and identities. The project is unique in its approach to exploring the complex relationship between students' engineering engagement, learning, and identity formation to understand expansive learning ecologies in engineering for African American males. The strong emphasis on the design of equitable learning spaces within engineering education will provide additional insights that can more broadly impact the academic community.