Collaborative Research: Implementing a Humanities-driven Curriculum to Address Critical Thinking and Empathy Skills Among Engineering Students

合作研究：实施人文驱动的课程以培养工程学生的批判性思维和同理心技能

• 批准号: 2142685
• 负责人: Iris Rivero
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: Rochester Institute of Tech
• 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: 2022-06-15 至 2024-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2142685&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Implementing; Humanities; driven

This project aims to serve the national interest by understanding how critical thinking and empathetic science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals can be developed through a humanities-driven curricular and problem-solving approach. The need for empathetic and critical thinking skills for STEM professionals is becoming readily evident due to the increased complexities of our society. Continued globalization through technologies means that the work of scientists and engineers has a greater impact on how we interact and communicate than ever before and presents a new set of grand challenges for our society. Traditionally, the humanities have played little to no role in STEM education even though critical thinking and empathy skills are hallmarks of a humanities education. There are, however, natural links that may enrich STEM students' educational experience and better prepare them to meet these grand challenges. This project will present science and engineering problem-solving within a humanities setting, an approach called humanities-driven STEM (HDSTEM). This approach will engage an interdisciplinary collaboration between humanities and engineering situated at two universities, Texas Tech University (TTU) and Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). With this collaboration, students will develop problem-solving skills that require them to empathize and think critically. Through the NSF IUSE:EHR Engaged Student Learning track, this work will meet the program's goal to seek transformative approaches to generating and using new knowledge about STEM teaching and learning to improve STEM education for undergraduate students.This project will examine the effectiveness of two problem-solving assignments: typical problem-solving and empathy-embedded problem-solving within two-course designs: a HDSTEM design with team-taught Humanities and STEM faculty, and instruction by STEM faculty in an introductory engineering curriculum. Curriculum treatments will be compared across two universities, TTU and RIT. While considering different faculty and instructors for this curriculum at the two institutions, the curriculum will be tied together through shared typical and empathy-embedded problem-solving assignments. The purpose of these treatments is to deepen STEM students' ability to empathize and think critically. At the same time, the project will examine which of the two implementation processes (i.e., HDSTEM curriculum and introductory engineering curriculum) performs better. This study will use a mixed-methods approach to analyze data and results. Multiple sources of data will be collected, analyzed, and compared for triangulation. Comparisons will be made between the data collected at the beginning and end of the courses. Discourse and content analysis in conjunction with commonly used rubrics for critical thinking and empathy will measure and assess differences from the curriculum treatments. Results will show benefits in critical thinking and empathy from the HDSTEM environment. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.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.

该项目旨在通过了解如何通过人文驱动的课程和解决问题的方法培养批判性思维和同理心的科学、技术、工程和数学 (STEM) 专业人员，从而服务于国家利益。由于社会日益复杂，STEM 专业人士对同理心和批判性思维技能的需求变得越来越明显。技术带来的持续全球化意味着科学家和工程师的工作对我们的互动和沟通方式产生了比以往更大的影响，并给我们的社会带来了一系列新的巨大挑战。传统上，尽管批判性思维和同理心技能是人文教育的标志，但人文学科在 STEM 教育中几乎没有发挥任何作用。然而，天然的联系可以丰富 STEM 学生的教育经历，让他们更好地应对这些重大挑战。该项目将在人文学科背景下解决科学和工程问题，这种方法称为人文驱动的 STEM (HDSTEM)。这种方法将促进德克萨斯理工大学 (TTU) 和罗彻斯特理工学院 (RIT) 两所大学的人文学科和工程学之间的跨学科合作。 通过这种合作，学生将培养解决问题的能力，这需要他们具有同理心和批判性思考。 通过 NSF IUSE：EHR 参与的学生学习轨道，这项工作将实现该计划的目标，即寻求变革性方法来生成和使用有关 STEM 教学和学习的新知识，以改善本科生的 STEM 教育。该项目将检查两个解决问题的作业的有效性：两门课程设计中的典型问题解决和嵌入同理心的问题解决：HDSTEM 设计，由团队授课的人文学科和 STEM 教师组成，并由 STEM 教师教授工程入门课程。 TTU 和 RIT 两所大学的课程设置将进行比较。在考虑两个机构的该课程的不同教师和讲师时，课程将通过共享的典型和嵌入同理心的问题解决作业联系在一起。这些治疗的目的是加深 STEM 学生的同理心和批判性思考的能力。同时，该项目将检查两个实施过程（即 HDSTEM 课程和入门工程课程）中哪一个表现更好。本研究将使用混合方法来分析数据和结果。将收集、分析和比较多个数据源以进行三角测量。将在课程开始和结束时收集的数据进行比较。话语和内容分析与常用的批判性思维和同理心标准相结合，将衡量和评估与课程处理的差异。 结果将显示 HDSTEM 环境对批判性思维和同理心的益处。 NSF IUSE：EHR 计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生 STEM 教育的有效性。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建、探索和实施。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。