NRT-UtB: Science of learning, from neurobiology to real-world application: a problem-based approach

学习是人类智力发展的基础，学习的过程贯穿于我们的一生。也许最重要的是，我们学习的方式和内容塑造了我们是谁。该项目有双重目标，即实现对学习的更深入的科学理解，并向科学家和公众传达对学习科学的更深入理解。几十年来，包括遗传学、神经科学、语言学、教育学和心理学在内的不同领域已经产生了大量关于人类学习方式各个方面的知识，但仍然存在一个巨大的挑战：将这些知识整合到基于这些不同领域的学习的统一理解中，从基因到神经元，大脑和人类行为。这个国家科学基金会研究培训（NRT）奖给康涅狄格大学将有助于准备下一代的研究人员，以迎接这一挑战。该培训项目将培训50名博士生，其中包括25名受资助的学员，来自教育学、遗传学、语言学、心理学、神经科学和言语语言听力科学。通过强调基于问题的方法（边做边学），拥抱跨学科的广泛合作，并整合沟通和领导技能的实践培训，使有效的多学科项目设计，管理和科学发现，该计划将为学员提供独特的准备在学术界，工业界和公共部门的一系列职业生涯。该培训计划有五个主要组成部分：一个为期一年的密集研讨会，调查所有参与领域的学习科学，一个实践实习，学员学习设计和实施多学科研究，教师学生研究兴趣小组，作为头脑风暴发射台新的科学挑战，数据管理模块，以及综合培训外展和沟通。该研讨会提供了一个跨学科的介绍学习的科学和技术交流的挑战，而实习强调在学术和非学术职业生涯中至关重要的实用技能，研究生教育往往缺乏：项目设计和管理，预算和资源分配，以及外部通信。随着实习中出现有前途的研究提案，研究兴趣小组将不断发展，它们既是参与者的研究焦点，也是参与者的组织结构。从他们在程序的第一天，学生面临的挑战是如何明确和有效地分享想法，而不假设先验知识或依赖于技术术语，一种技能，不仅使卓越的研究，但使学员成为大使，为他们的工作，以社会作为一个整体。该计划还将通过招聘和保留的最佳实践促进需要高级培训的职业的多样性。NSF研究培训（NRT）计划旨在鼓励为STEM研究生教育培训开发和实施大胆的，新的潜在变革模式。培训课程致力于在高优先级的跨学科研究领域对STEM研究生进行有效培训，通过全面的培训模式，这些模式具有创新性，以证据为基础，并与不断变化的劳动力和研究需求保持一致。

Learning is the basis of human mental development and the process of learning continues throughout our lives. Perhaps more than anything else, how and what we learn shapes who we are. This project has the dual aims of achieving a deeper scientific understanding of learning, and communicating a deeper understanding of the science of learning to scientists and the public. Over several decades, diverse fields including genetics, neuroscience, linguistics, education, and psychology have generated a wealth of knowledge about myriad aspects of how humans learn, but a grand challenge remains: to integrate that knowledge into a unified understanding of learning based on these diverse fields, and on scales ranging from the gene to the neuron, brain, and human behavior. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to the University of Connecticut will help prepare the next generation of researchers to meet this challenge. The traineeship, focusing on the science of learning, will train fifty (50) PhD students, including twenty-five (25) funded trainees, from education, genetics, linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, and speech-language-hearing sciences. By emphasizing a problem-based approach (learning by doing), embracing collaboration across a broad a spectrum of disciplines, and integrating hands-on training in communication and leadership skills that enable effective multidisciplinary project design, management, and scientific discovery, this program will offer trainees unique preparation for a range of careers in academia, industry, and the public sector. The training program has five major components: an intensive one-year seminar that surveys the science of learning across all participating fields, a hands-on practicum where trainees learn to design and implement multidisciplinary research, faculty-student research interest groups that serve as brainstorming launch pads for new scientific challenges, data stewardship modules, and integrated training in outreach and communication. The seminar provides a cross-disciplinary introduction to the science of learning and the challenge of technical communication, while the practicum emphasizes practical skills crucial in academic and nonacademic careers that graduate education too often lacks: project design and management, budgeting and resource allocation, and external communications. The research interest groups, which will evolve as promising research proposals emerge from the practicum, serve as both focal point for research and organizational structure for the participants. From their first day in the program, students face the challenge of how to clearly and effectively share ideas without assuming prior knowledge or relying on technical jargon, a skill that not only enables excellence in research, but empowers trainees to become ambassadors for their work to society as a whole. This program will also promote diversity in careers requiring advanced training through best practices in recruitment and retention.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 Traineeship Track is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary research areas, through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.