Fostering Technology Entrepreneurship through a Project‐Based Learning Community

该项目将有助于国家需要受过良好教育的科学家，数学家，工程师和技术人员通过支持高成就，低收入的学生在西卡罗莱纳大学证明经济需要的保留和毕业。在六年的时间里，该项目将为36名攻读工程或技术学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。一年级学生将获得四年奖学金。转学生将获得长达三年的奖学金。该项目旨在培养工程和技术专业本科生的创业思维，让一群跨学年的学生参与强化学习社区，将他们以技术为导向的产品理念从一开始就推向市场。奖学金获得者将与校园资源，当地行业合作伙伴和专家，教师导师和队列团队会议联系起来，以提出，评论，选择，开发和实施商业上可行的技术产品。该项目将紧密集成在基于项目的学习课程中，该课程利用最先进的原型设计设施，并将增加业务案例开发，产品发布和小型企业启动方面的培训。通过该项目开发的工程教育的新方法将有助于丰富新毕业生在技术领域的创造潜力，并扩大小企业的创造和就业，这对北卡罗来纳州西部等农村地区的增长至关重要，那里可能有更少的大型主流雇主。该项目还将包括通过扩展传统工程课程，将技术创新和商业化的商业方面纳入其中，以推进创业教育的最新发展。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入、高成就且有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位完成率。为了实现这一目标，该项目将专门致力于促进学生的创业思维，通过制定创业目标来增加学生对工程和商业培训的参与，并增加区域技术企业家的多样性，包括更多的本地阿巴拉契亚参与者。那些拥有创业心态的人的关键素质或维度通常包括成长心态的存在，创造力的定期实践和高个人自我效能。由于创业被视为克服城乡就业市场之间的就业和收入差距的一种有利力量，以技能为基础并可教授的创业层面受到高度关注。该项目将调查学习社区对创业心态的学习维度的影响，并将研究项目干预措施对奖学金获得者与东道部门其他学生相比的创业主义的影响。该项目将大大提高创业教育和教学法的最新水平，将创业的商业方面纳入工程和技术课程。该项目将根据通过调查，反思论文，小组互动总结和访谈收集的定量和定性数据进行评估。项目效率将从学者产生的成果的质量，包括在球场活动，专利申请，成功的产品发布，产品演变到研究生研究，外部资助的合作伙伴关系和就业机会的接待。将通过社交及其他媒体宣传这些活动和其他值得注意的活动。项目研究人员将通过ASEE，IEEE等教学研究场所发表研究结果。该项目由NSF的科学，技术，工程和数学奖学金计划资助，旨在增加低收入学术天才学生的数量，这些学生表现出经济需求，并获得STEM领域的学位。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并产生关于低收入学生的学术成功，保留，转移，毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。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 scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high‐achieving, low‐income students with demonstrated financial need at Western Carolina University. Over its six‐year duration, this project will fund scholarships to thirty‐six unique full‐time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in engineering or technology. First year students will receive four‐year scholarships. Transfer students will receive up to three‐year scholarships. The project aims to cultivate entrepreneurial thinking among undergraduates in engineering and technology by involving a cohort of students across academic years in an intensive learning community to bring their technology‐oriented product ideas from inception to market. Scholarship recipients will be linked with campus resources, local industry partners and experts, faculty mentors, and cohort teaming sessions to propose, critique, select, develop, and implement commercially viable technology products. The project will be tightly integrated within a project‐based learning curriculum that leverages state‐of‐the‐art prototyping facilities and will be augmented to include training in business case development, product launch and small business startup. The novel approach to engineering education developed through this project will serve to enrich the creative potential of new graduates in technical fields and to expand small business creation and employment, both of key importance to growth in rural regions like western North Carolina where there may be fewer large mainstream employers. The project will also include advance the state of the art in entrepreneurship education by extending conventional engineering curricula to include business aspects of technology innovation and commercialization.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low‐income, high‐achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Toward this goal, the project will specifically aim to promote entrepreneurial thinking among students, to increase student engagement with engineering and business training through the development of entrepreneurial goals, and to increase the diversity of regional technology entrepreneurs to include a greater presence of native Appalachian participants. Key qualities, or dimensions, of those who possess an entrepreneurial mindset will often include the presence of a growth mindset, a regular practice of creativity, and high personal self‐efficacy. As entrepreneurism is seen as an enabling force to overcome employment and income divides between urban and rural job markets, dimensions of entrepreneurship that are skills‐based, and can be taught, are of high interest. The project will investigate the impacts of the learning community on learned dimensions of the entrepreneurial mindset and will examine the effects of program interventions on entrepreneurism in scholarship recipients as compared with other students in the host department. The project will significantly advance the state of the art in entrepreneurship education and pedagogy that integrates business aspects of entrepreneurism and into engineering and technology curricula. The project will be evaluated based on both quantitative and qualitative data collected through surveys, reflection essays, small group interaction summaries, and interviews. Project efficacy will be drawn from the quality of scholar‐generated outcomes including reception at pitch events, patent applications, successful product launches, product evolutions to graduate research, externally funded partnerships, and employment opportunities. These and other noteworthy events will be publicized via social and other media. Project investigators will publish findings through pedagogical research venues such as ASEE, IEEE, and others. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low‐income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low‐income students.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.