NRT-IGE: Integrating Team Science into the STEM Graduate Training Experience

大型跨学科团队经常是当今复杂科学和工程问题研究的核心。对于许多科学家和工程师来说，在团队中工作是一项挑战，因为他们学习的大学文化认可并奖励个人成就。例如，博士生的最终项目报告，论文，必须代表学生自己的原创贡献。同样地，大学通过等级晋升单个教员，而不是集体教员。尽管以团队为基础的研究很重要，但从历史上看，大学很少为科学和工程研究生提供系统的准备，帮助他们在涉及更多合作的职业生涯中取得成功。佐治亚理工学院研究生教育创新（IGE）项目的国家科学基金会研究培训（NRT）奖将通过开发培训研究生团队合作能力的材料和衡量这些材料的有效性来解决这些挑战。该项目将采用一种新颖的课程开发方法，借鉴医疗保健行业、航空和军事等广泛来源的团队培训最佳实践。改编这些材料以满足研究生的需要，将确保学生成为有效的团队成员和领导者，他们可以在整个职业生涯中推进科学和工程。这个项目旨在确定研究生如何学习成为有效的团队成员和团队领导者。该项目将调查哪些教学材料和方法对学生培养团队合作能力最有效，哪些环境最适合学习和保留特定的可转移技能。该项目有三个目标：(1)为团队培训开发教学材料和协作流程；(2)实施这些教材；(3)评估教学材料的有效性，以及在研究生阶段开发和实施团队培训的过程。实现这些目标将增加关于有效研究生教育的知识库。该项目侧重于三个关键考虑因素：能力、受众和环境。本项目研究的能力是可转移的，这意味着它们在许多不同的研究领域都很有用。例子包括关于团队合作的性质和价值的知识，沟通和冲突管理的技能，以及对多样性和包容性的态度。该项目的受众包括来自各种STEM项目的硕士和博士学生。为了最大限度地提高灵活性，团队将开发小单元的课程材料，教师可以在不同的环境中提供。开发和引入材料的环境包括现有的学术课程，短期（60-90分钟）或更长（半天，全天）的研讨会，以及长达一个学期的学术课程。美国国家科学基金会研究实习生（NRT）计划旨在鼓励开发和实施大胆的、新的、具有潜在变革性的STEM研究生教育培训模式。研究生教育创新轨道专门用于试点，测试和评估新颖，创新和潜在的变革性研究生教育方法。

Large interdisciplinary teams are frequently at the core of research on today's complex science and engineering problems. Working in teams is challenging for many scientists and engineers because the culture of universities, where they studied, recognizes and rewards individual achievement. For example, a Ph.D. student's final project report, the dissertation, must represent the student's own original contribution. Likewise, universities promote individual faculty members, not groups, through the ranks. Despite the importance of team-based research, universities have historically provided little systematic preparation for science and engineering graduate students to help them succeed in careers involving greater collaboration. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award in the Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) Track to the Georgia Institute of Technology will address these challenges by developing materials to train graduate students to work in teams and by measuring the effectiveness of these materials. The project will take a novel approach to curriculum development by drawing on best practices in team training from a wide range of sources such as the healthcare industry, aviation, and the military. Adaptation of these materials to meet the needs of graduate students will ensure that the students become effective team members and leaders who can advance science and engineering throughout their careers. This project seeks to determine how graduate students learn to be effective team members and team leaders. The project will investigate which instructional materials and approaches are most effective for students to develop teamwork competencies and which settings are most suitable for learning and retaining specific transportable skills. This project has three goals: (1) develop instructional materials and collaborative processes for team training; (2) implement these instructional materials; and (3) evaluate the effectiveness of instructional materials as well as the processes for developing and implementing team training at the graduate level. Achieving these goals will add to the knowledge base about effective graduate education. The project focuses on three key considerations: competencies, audiences, and settings. The competencies studied by this project are transportable, meaning they are useful in many different areas of research. Examples include knowledge about the nature and value of teamwork, skills in communication and conflict management, and attitudes about diversity and inclusiveness. The audience for the project includes M.S. and Ph.D. students across a wide range of STEM programs. To maximize flexibility, the team will develop curricular materials in small units that faculty can deliver in different settings. Settings where materials will be developed and introduced include existing academic courses, short (60-90 minute) or longer (half day, full day) workshops, and semester-long academic courses. The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The Innovations in Graduate Education Track is dedicated solely to piloting, testing, and evaluating novel, innovative, and potentially transformative approaches to graduate education.