Fostering Technology Entrepreneurship through a Project‐Based Learning Community

通过基于项目的学习社区促进技术创业

• 批准号: 2130326
• 负责人: Paul Yanik
• 金额: $ 149.54万
• 依托单位: Western Carolina University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-02-01 至 2028-01-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2130326&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Fostering; Technology; Entrepreneurship; through; Project

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.

该项目将通过支持西卡罗来纳大学有经济需求的高成就、低收入学生的留校和毕业，来促进国家对受过良好教育的科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求。在为期六年的时间里，该项目将为36名正在攻读工程或技术学士学位的独特全日制学生提供奖学金。一年级的学生将获得四年的奖学金。转校生将获得最多三年的奖学金。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加入密集学习社区，将他们以技术为导向的产品想法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、教师导师以及分组会议联系起来，提出、批评、选择、开发和实施商业上可行的技术产品。该项目将紧密整合在基于项目的学习课程中，该课程利用最先进的原型设施，并将得到扩充，包括商业案例开发、产品发布和小企业创业方面的培训。通过该项目开发的工程教育的新方法将有助于丰富应届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，这两个方面对北卡罗来纳州西部等农村地区的增长都至关重要，因为那里的大型主流雇主可能较少。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创业教育的最新水平。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位完成率。为了实现这一目标，该项目将明确旨在促进学生的创业思维，通过制定创业目标增加学生对工程和商业培训的参与度，并增加地区技术企业家的多样性，包括更多阿巴拉契亚本地参与者。那些拥有创业心态的人的关键品质或维度通常包括成长心态、定期的创造力实践和高度的个人自我效能感。由于创业精神被视为克服城乡就业市场之间的就业和收入差距的有利力量，以技能为基础且可以传授的创业方面引起了人们的极大兴趣。该项目将调查学习社区对创业思维的学习维度的影响，并将检查项目干预对奖学金获得者创业精神的影响，并与东道国部门的其他学生进行比较。该项目将极大地推动将创业精神的商业方面融入工程和技术课程的创业教育和教育学的发展水平。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。项目成效将取决于学者产生的成果的质量，包括推介活动的接待情况、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。这些和其他值得注意的活动将通过社交媒体和其他媒体进行宣传。项目调查人员将通过ASEE、IEEE等教学研究平台发布研究结果。该项目由NSF的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，该项目旨在增加在STEM领域获得学位的低收入学术天才学生的数量。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业成功、留住、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优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。