The Lean Canvas for Invention: A Team-Based Framework for Research Development, Mentoring, and Career Readiness

培养一支科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)劳动力队伍对于我们国家在全球创新和竞争中的竞争能力至关重要。然而，STEM的研究生培训计划并没有让学生为工作性质和可获得性的变化、劳动力人口结构的变化、日益激烈的竞争、宏观道德以及技术和研究方法方面的不懈和惊人的创新做好准备。美国国家科学、工程和医学研究院(NASEM)建议STEM研究生教育响应劳动力需求，将理论与实践联系起来，利用基于项目的学习，指导探索多样化的职业道路，培养核心能力和可转移的专业技能。授予犹他大学的国家科学基金会研究生教育创新奖(IGE)将通过审查大胆、新的、变革性的、基于团队的方法在工程学研究生研究发展和创业中的影响和可行性，优化研究团队成员之间的指导互动和关系的质量和一致性，并培养研究生的专业能力和劳动力准备，来回应这些建议。该项目不仅帮助研究生培养在他们的学科中取得成功的技能和知识，还提高了同行和教师指导关系的质量和有效性，以创造一个更具包容性、更具支持性和更有成效的研究环境。结果将向教育界通报培训下一代STEM科学家的最佳做法。发明精益画布(LCI)是一门基于网络的课程，它是最近开发的，最初是试行的。它将帮助研究团队思考研究问题，并计划和实施团队和个人研究项目。该项目将通过包括正式的指导和职业发展来扩大基本的LCI。第一个研究目标是应用扩展的LCI，包括七个研究团队，并检查学生结果的差异(例如，研究建议的质量、批判性思维技能、研究自我效能等)。在那些参与LCI的人和具有代表性的非LCI同龄人样本之间。第二个研究目标是通过学生、教师和相关行业利益相关者之间的定期和结构化的互动，提供指导、培训和资源。LCI参与者的定量调查和定性焦点小组将评估他们对指导关系的感知质量、特征和满意度，以及指导如何影响研究生的坚持态度。对LCI和非LCI同龄人进行干预前和干预后的调查将考察学生和教师对研究团队、学术部门和更大的工程领域的归属感。第三个研究目标是通过帮助学生创建个性化的职业发展计划，包括职业抱负、目标和行动步骤，在特定时间点进行审查，从而促进专业能力和劳动力准备的发展。将提供职业探索资源，以及与工程相关行业专业人员的结构化网络机会。与LCI和非LCI同行进行干预前和干预后的调查将检查STEM核心能力发展的差异，以及在学位和劳动力准备指标方面的进展。研究生教育创新(IGE)计划侧重于研究生教育研究。IGE的目标是试验、测试和验证研究生教育的创新方法，并产生将这些方法推广到更广泛社区所需的知识。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。

Developing a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workforce is critical to our nation's ability to compete with innovation and competition globally. However, graduate training programs in STEM are not preparing students for changes in the nature and availability of work, shifts in workforce demographics, rising competition, macro ethics, and unremitting and striking innovations in technologies and research methods. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) recommends that STEM graduate education respond to workforce needs, connect theory to practice, utilize project-based learning, guide the exploration of diverse career paths, and develop core competencies as well as transferable professional skills. The National Science Foundation Innovations of Graduate Education (IGE) award to the University of Utah will respond to these recommendations by examining the impact and feasibility of a bold, new, transformative, team-based approach to graduate research development and entrepreneurship in engineering that optimizes the quality and consistency of mentoring interactions and relationships among members of the research team, and fosters graduate students’ professional competencies and workforce readiness. This project not only helps graduate students develop the skills and knowledge to be successful in their discipline, but also enhances the quality and effectiveness of peer and faculty mentoring relationships to create a more inclusive, supportive, and productive research environment. Results will inform the education community on best practices for training the next generation of STEM scientists. The Lean Canvas for Invention (LCI) is a web-based course that was recently developed and initially previously piloted. It will help research teams think through a research problem and plan and implement both team and individual research projects. This project will expand the basic LCI by including formalized mentoring and career development. The first research objective is to apply the expanded LCI with seven research teams and examine differences in student outcomes (e.g., quality of research proposals, critical thinking skills, research self-efficacy, etc.) between those who participated in the LCI and a representative sample of non-LCI peers. The second research objective is to provide mentoring training and resources through interactions among students, faculty, and relevant industry stakeholders on a regular and structured basis. Quantitative surveys and qualitative focus groups with LCI participants will evaluate the perceived quality, characteristics of, and satisfaction with their mentoring relationships and how mentoring influenced graduate students’ persistence attitudes. Pre- and post-intervention surveys with LCI and non-LCI peers will examine students’ and faculty’s sense of belonging within the research team, the academic department, and the larger field of engineering. The third research objective is to foster the development of professional competencies and workforce readiness by helping students create an individualized career development plan including career aspirations, goals, and action steps that will be reviewed at specific time points. Career exploration resources, as well as structured networking opportunities with professionals in the engineering-related industry, will be provided. Pre- and post-intervention surveys with LCI and non-LCI peers will examine differences in the development of STEM core competencies as well as progress towards degree and workforce readiness indicators.The Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program is focused on research in graduate education. The goals of IGE are to pilot, test and validate innovative approaches to graduate education and to generate the knowledge required to move these approaches into the broader community.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.