A New Approach to Evaluate Student Learning Outcomes Resulting From Participation in Remotely Operated Vehicle Competitions

全国对拥有知识和技能的学生的需求不断增长，这些知识和技能为他们进入大学水平的技术人员教育计划和熟练的技术劳动力做好了准备。 机器人竞赛是吸引学生参与 STEM 学科的热门场所，它们将学生、导师和机构与各种成功且引人入胜的技术项目联系起来。海洋先进技术教育中心 (MATE) 自 2001 年以来一直支持遥控潜水器 (ROV) 竞赛，以此激发学生对 STEM 的兴趣和参与度，帮助他们培养 21 世纪的工作技能，并使他们能够规划自己的职业道路。该项目将支持参加地区和国际 R​​OV 竞赛的高中、社区学院和学院/大学的学生，以确定他们需要通过这项活动获得的知识和技能，清楚地看到他们需要改进的领域，并在他们继续接受教育和/或准备进入劳动力市场时利用这些知识来发挥自己的优势。该项目以一系列全面的赛后调查为基础并进行了扩展，这些调查支持 ROV 竞赛对参赛学生的价值，并且与 ATE 计划的目标高度一致。除了蒙特利半岛学院 (MPC) 的 MATE 中心外，该项目还汇集了纽约州立大学布法罗分校（布法罗州）以及卡尔顿学院科学教育资源中心 (SERC) 提供的技术资源。 该项目以 EvaluateUR 为基础，EvaluateUR 是纽约州立大学布法罗州立大学开发的一种成功的评估方法。 EvaluateUR 提供详细的数据，衡量各种理想的学生成果，包括内容知识和在工作场所至关重要的成果，例如沟通技巧、创造力、自主性、克服障碍的能力、批判性思维和解决问题的能力。 EvaluateUR 还为学生提供“元认知”技能，即了解自己学术优势和劣势并对自己的学习拥有更大自主权的能力。该项目将采用 EvaluateUR 的创新设计，为参加 MATE 地区和国际 R​​OV 竞赛的学生提供服务，支持教师顾问指导设计和建造 ROV 的学生，并向 MATE 提供有关竞赛学术价值的可靠反馈。 将支持以下目标： 1) 确保所有参加比赛的学生在参与之初就知道他们应该掌握哪些具体知识和技能，以便为额外的教育和/或工作场所做好准备； 2) 更准确地衡量每个学生在达到这种掌握方面所表现出的进步程度； 3）以增强学生元认知能力的方式实现这些目标； 4) 为每个参加竞赛的机构创建一个数据库，其中包含可靠的、经过统计验证的结果，显示学生在特定知识和技能方面的进步。还预计其他机器人竞赛，例如 FIRST、VEX、Botball 以及国际无人驾驶车辆系统协会 (AUVSI) 的陆地、空中和海上项目套件，代表了该方法的潜在用户，项目结果的传播将包括这些机器人社区以及其他国家协会和 ATE PI 社区。 该项目由 NSF 先进技术教育计划资助，该计划重点关注推动国家经济发展的先进技术领域的技术人员教育。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

There is a growing national demand for students who possess content knowledge and skills that prepare them to enter college level technician education programs and the skilled technical workforce. Robotics competitions are popular venues for engaging students in STEM disciplines, and they connect students, mentors, and institutions to a variety of successful and engaging technology-based programs. The Marine Advanced Technology Education Center (MATE) has supported the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Competition since 2001 as a way to interest and engage students in STEM, help them develop 21st Century workplace skills, and enable them to envision themselves on career pathways. This project will support high school, community college, and college/university students who participate in regional and international ROV competitions to identify the knowledge and skills they need to gain through this activity, to see clearly the areas where they need to improve, and to use this knowledge to their advantage as they continue their education and/or prepare to enter the workforce. This project builds upon and extends findings obtained using a set of comprehensive post-competition surveys that support the value of the ROV competitions for participating students, and is strongly aligned with the goals of the ATE program. In addition to the MATE Center at Monterey Peninsula College (MPC), the project brings together the State University of New York College at Buffalo (Buffalo State), and the technical resources available through the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College. This project builds on EvaluateUR, a successful evaluation method developed at SUNY Buffalo State. EvaluateUR provides detailed data measuring a broad range of desirable student outcomes that include both content knowledge and outcomes that are critically important in the workplace, such as communication skills, creativity, autonomy, an ability to overcome obstacles, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. EvaluateUR also provides students with "metacognition" skills - the ability to understand their academic strengths and weaknesses and take greater ownership of their own learning. The project will adapt the innovative design of EvaluateUR to serve students participating in MATE's regional and international ROV competitions, support faculty advisors as they mentor students who are designing and building ROVs, and provide reliable feedback to MATE about the academic value of the competitions. The following objectives will be supported: 1) Ensure that all students involved in the competitions know at the outset of their participation what specific knowledge and skills they should be mastering in order to prepare for additional education and/or the workplace; 2) Measure more precisely for each student how much growth he or she has demonstrated toward achieving such mastery; 3) Accomplish these goals in a way that strengthens student metacognitive abilities; and 4) Create a database, for each institution participating in the competitions, of reliable, statistically validated findings showing student growth on specific knowledge and skills. It is also anticipated that other robotics competitions, such as FIRST, VEX, Botball, and the Association of Unmanned Vehicle System International's (AUVSI) suite of land, air, and sea programs, represent potential users of this methodology, and dissemination of project results will include these robotics communities as well as other national associations and the ATE PI community. This project is funded by the NSF Advanced Technological Education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the nation's economy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.