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

该项目将有助于满足国家对生产工程，特别是先进制造业中受过良好教育的工程师和技术人员的需求。通过降低成本、提高质量和生产基于新技术的创新产品，先进制造业是保持美国制造商竞争力的关键。该项目将支持集成先进系统工程概念的先进制造课程的设计、部署和评估。该课程将包括一套模块化的在线课程，旨在为在职专业人士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学院的参与，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开展。该课程的一个创新之处在于它使用远程呈现和模拟技术，为学生提供虚拟设计和测试体验，当他们无法进入物理实验室时。因此，该项目有潜力提供关于虚拟实验室经验作为实际经验的替代品或增强的有效性的重要结果。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，因此它有可能覆盖全球数千名学生。该项目的总体目标是设计、开发和部署在线课程，以加速美国劳动力在关键系统工程技能领域的培训，并将其应用于先进制造业。第一个目标是确定先进制造企业劳动力所需的系统工程相关领域所需的能力。其次，该项目计划开发模块化课程，整合相关的基于模拟和基于远程呈现的实验，以提高在线交付过程中对内容的理解和记忆。第三，项目将对课程进行研究性评估。具体而言，它将调查在两年制大学、四年制大学和专业设置的在线环境下，基于挑战的、引导的体验式学习教学方法的有效性。该研究将以社会认知和社会建构主义学习理论为基础，使用指导性体验学习作为其教学框架。该项目将使用基于基础的评估，包括多维挑战为重点的规则、清单、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情况，以及学生对学科的掌握程度和态度。本项目将采用形成性和总结性混合方法进行评估，并通过调查和焦点小组使用来自独立咨询小组、学生和教师的信息。这个项目的成果将通过一个基于网络的资源库作为开放的教育资源发布。该项目由美国国家科学基金会EHR核心研究：生产工程教育与研究（ECR: PEER）项目资助，该项目旨在改善未来和当前生产工程专业人员的教育。它还旨在研究这些项目所采用的创新教育策略的有效性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.