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

发展一支科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）人才队伍对于我们国家在全球创新和竞争中竞争的能力至关重要。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、宏观伦理以及技术和研究方法的不懈和显著创新做好准备。美国国家科学院、工程院和医学院（NASEM）建议，STEM研究生教育应满足劳动力需求，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，培养核心竞争力和可转移的专业技能。美国国家科学基金会研究生教育创新（IGE）奖将对这些建议作出回应，通过研究一种大胆的、新的、变革性的、以团队为基础的方法对研究生研究开发和工程创业的影响和可行性，优化指导互动的质量和一致性，以及研究团队成员之间的关系。培养研究生的专业能力和就业准备。这个项目不仅帮助研究生发展技能和知识，使他们在自己的学科中取得成功，而且还提高了同伴和教师指导关系的质量和有效性，以创造一个更加包容、支持和富有成效的研究环境。结果将告知教育界培训下一代STEM科学家的最佳实践。精益发明画布（LCI）是最近开发的一门基于网络的课程，最初曾试行过。它将帮助研究团队思考研究问题，计划和实施团队和个人的研究项目。该项目将通过纳入正式的指导和职业发展来扩展基本的LCI。第一个研究目标是在七个研究团队中应用扩展的LCI，并检查参与LCI的学生和非LCI同龄人的代表性样本之间的学生成果差异（例如，研究提案的质量，批判性思维技能，研究自我效能等）。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定期和结构化的互动，提供指导培训和资源。以LCI参与者为对象的定量调查和定性焦点小组将评估师徒关系的感知质量、特征和满意度，以及师徒关系如何影响研究生的坚持态度。与LCI和非LCI同行进行的干预前和干预后调查将检查学生和教师在研究团队、学术部门和更大的工程领域中的归属感。第三个研究目标是通过帮助学生制定个性化的职业发展计划，包括职业抱负、目标和行动步骤，从而促进专业能力和劳动力准备的发展，这些计划将在特定的时间点进行回顾。将提供职业探索资源，以及与工程相关行业专业人士的结构化网络机会。与LCI和非LCI同行的干预前和干预后调查将检查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）项目专注于研究生教育的研究。IGE的目标是试点、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的社区所需的知识。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。

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.