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

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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.