Development of a Modular, Scalable, and Extensible Model-Based Systems Engineering Advanced Manufacturing Curriculum

该项目将促进全国对受过良好教育的生产工程工程师和技术人员的需求，特别是在先进制造业方面。先进制造业是通过降低成本、提高质量和生产基于新技术的创新产品来保持美国制造商竞争力的关键。该项目将支持设计、部署和评估整合了先进系统工程概念的先进制造课程。该课程将由一套模块化的在线课程组成，旨在为在职专业人员以及两年制和四年制学院或大学的学生提供服务。为了确保行业和社区大学的参与，该项目将由南加州大学与东洛杉矶社区学院、洛杉矶城市学院、圣莫尼卡学院、洛杉矶贸易技术学院和南加州大学维特比先进制造中心行业咨询委员会合作实施。该课程的一个创新方面是使用网真和模拟技术，在学生无法访问物理实验室时为他们提供虚拟设计和测试体验。因此，该项目有可能提供关于虚拟实验室体验作为实践体验的替代或增强的有效性的重要成果。此外，由于该课程将允许学生远程学习课程内容，并且易于扩展，因此它有可能接触到全球数千名学生。该项目的总体目标是设计、开发和部署在线课程，以加快美国劳动力在关键系统工程技能领域的培训及其在先进制造业中的应用。第一个目标是确定先进制造企业中劳动力所需的系统工程相关领域中所需的能力。其次，该项目计划开发模块课程，将基于模拟的相关实验和基于网真的实验相结合，以提高在线交付期间对内容的理解和保留。第三，该项目将对课程进行研究性评估。具体地说，它将在两年制大学、四年制大学和专业环境中调查在线环境下基于挑战的指导性体验式学习教学方法的有效性。这项研究将以社会认知和社会建构主义学习理论为基础，以指导性体验式学习为教学框架。该项目将使用扎根的评估，包括以挑战为重点的多维标准、核对表、学生概念清单和问卷，以衡量教师对指导性体验式学习教学法的使用以及学生的学科掌握和态度。这个项目将使用形成性和终结性混合方法进行评估，使用来自独立咨询小组、学生和教职员工的信息，通过调查和焦点小组。该项目的成果将以开放教育资源的形式提供，使用基于网络的储存库。该项目由NSF的EHR核心研究：生产工程教育和研究(ECR：PEER)计划资助，该计划旨在改善未来和现有生产工程专业人员的教育。它还旨在研究这些项目采用的创新教育战略的有效性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated engineers and technicians in production engineering, specifically in advanced manufacturing. Advanced manufacturing is key to keeping U. S. manufacturers competitive by reducing cost, improving quality, and producing innovative products based on new technologies. The project will support the design, deployment, and evaluation of an advanced manufacturing curriculum that integrates advanced systems engineering concepts. This curriculum will consist of a set of modular, online courses designed to serve working professionals, as well as students at two-year and four-year colleges or universities. To ensure industry and community college participation, the project will be conducted by the University of Southern California in collaboration with East Los Angeles Community College, Los Angeles City College, Santa Monica College, Los Angeles Trade Technical College, and the Industry Advisory Board for the USC Viterbi Center for Advanced Manufacturing. An innovative aspect of the curriculum is its use of telepresence and simulation technologies to provide students with virtual design and testing experiences when they do not have access to physical laboratories. As a result, the project has the potential to provide important results about the effectiveness of virtual laboratory experiences as substitutes or enhancements for hands-on experiences. In addition, because the curriculum will allow students to learn course content remotely and is easily scalable, it has the potential to reach thousands of students across the globe.The overall goal of this project is to design, develop, and deploy online curricula to accelerate training of the U. S. workforce in the critical systems engineering skills area and its application to advanced manufacturing. The first aim is to identify the required competencies in the systems engineering-related areas that are needed for the workforce in advanced manufacturing enterprises. Second, the project plans to develop modular courses that integrate relevant simulation-based and telepresence-based experiments to improve comprehension and retention of content during online delivery. Third, the project will conduct a research-based assessment of the courses. Specifically, it will investigate the effectiveness of a challenge-based, guided experiential learning pedagogical approach in an online context at the two-year college, four-year college, and professional settings. The research will be grounded in social cognitive and socio-constructivist learning theories, using guided experiential learning as its instructional framework. The project will use grounded assessments including multidimensional challenge-focused rubrics, checklists and student concept inventories and questionnaires to measure faculty use of guided experiential learning pedagogy and students' subject mastery and attitudes. This project will be evaluated using a formative and summative mixed methods approach, using information from an independent advisory group, students, and faculty via surveys and focus groups. Results of this project will be delivered as open educational resources using a web-based repository. This project is funded by NSF's EHR Core Research: Production Engineering Education and Research (ECR: PEER) program, which seeks to improve the education of future and current professionals in production engineering. It also aims to study the effectiveness of the innovative educational strategies adopted by these projects.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.