SBIR Phase I: Engaging Undergraduate Engineering Students in Authentic Inquiry

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This SBIR Phase I project will test the feasibility of a new product aimed at helping students succeed in undergraduate engineering courses. The US is failing to produce enough engineers required to compete in the global marketplace. Research has shown that undergraduate students struggle when they encounter more complex engineering concepts and are tasked with designing solutions to engineering problems. This leads to a lack of engagement as they do not foresee themselves as being successful engineers. The product will be software that creates virtual worlds in which students are tasked with designing solutions for real world engineering problems. It will be based on foundational theories of learning and prior NSF-funded research, and will enable students to develop and hone critical thinking and design skills. As students work through the problem, student data will be sent to their teachers in real time to help teachers immediately identify students that may be struggling with a particular concept or design skill. This project supports the mission of the NSF to support education in science and engineering and help students develop the skills required to pursue well paid engineering careers and contribute to the US economy. The innovation underpinning this project is the development of a software platform in which the critical thinking skills required to design effective engineering solutions can be delineation and refined. This platform will include simulations based on the physics underpinning foundational engineering concepts that will help students develop design skills through authentic inquiry as they design solutions for real world problems. The software will also include a real time data system that reports on the heuristic quality of student design decisions and builds into a formative assessment tool that will enable teachers to measure the development of design skills by their students over time. The goals of this project will be to determine whether engineering design skills can be effectively defined, refined and used as a new pedagogical basis for a suite of products to address the needs of US engineering colleges. The efficacy of the product in improving undergraduate student learning of difficult engineering concepts and development of design skills will be tested in a US college engineering course.