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

国家对拥有内容知识和技能的学生的需求不断增长，这些知识和技能使他们能够进入大学技术教育课程和熟练的技术劳动力。 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和引人入胜的技术项目联系起来。自2001年以来，海洋先进技术教育中心（MATE）一直支持远程操作车辆（遥控）竞赛，以吸引学生参与STEM，帮助他们发展21世纪世纪的工作技能，并使他们能够在职业道路上设想自己。该项目将支持高中，社区学院和学院/大学的学生参加区域和国际竞争，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。该项目建立在一组全面的赛后调查的基础上，并扩展了调查结果，这些调查支持了参赛学生参加竞争的价值，并与ATE计划的目标高度一致。除了蒙特雷半岛学院（MPC）的MATE中心外，该项目还汇集了布法罗（布法罗州）的纽约学院的州立大学，以及卡尔顿学院科学教育资源中心（SERC）提供的技术资源。 该项目建立在EvaluateUR的基础上，这是SUNY布法罗州立大学开发的一种成功的评估方法。EvaluateUR提供了详细的数据来衡量广泛的理想学生成果，包括内容知识和在工作场所至关重要的成果，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-了解自己的学术优势和弱点，并对自己的学习拥有更大的自主权。该项目将采用EvaluateUR的创新设计，为参加MATE区域和国际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。 将支持实现以下目标：⑴确保所有参加竞赛的学生在参加竞赛之初就知道他们应该掌握哪些具体知识和技能，以便为进一步教育和/或工作做好准备; ⑵更准确地衡量每个学生在掌握这些知识和技能方面取得了多大的进步; 3）以加强学生元认知能力的方式实现这些目标;以及4）为参加比赛的每个机构创建一个数据库，其中包含可靠的、经统计验证的结果，显示学生在特定知识和技能方面的增长。预计其他机器人竞赛，如FIRST，VEX，Botball和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，代表了这种方法的潜在用户，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，该计划专注于推动国家经济的先进技术领域的技术人员的教育。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.