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来培养批判性思维和同情心的科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）专业人员，从而为国家利益服务。由于我们社会的日益复杂，STEM专业人员对同理心和批判性思维技能的需求变得越来越明显。通过技术实现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任何时候都更大的影响，并为我们的社会提出了一系列新的重大挑战。传统上，人文学科在STEM教育中几乎没有发挥作用，尽管批判性思维和同理心技能是人文教育的标志。然而，有一些自然的联系可以丰富STEM学生的教育经验，并更好地为他们应对这些重大挑战做好准备。该项目将在人文环境中提出科学和工程问题解决方案，这种方法称为人文驱动的STEM（HDSTEM）。这种方法将在德克萨斯理工大学（TTU）和罗切斯特理工学院（RIT）这两所大学的人文和工程学之间进行跨学科合作。 通过这种合作，学生将培养解决问题的能力，要求他们同情和批判性思考。 通过NSF的IUSE：EHR Student Learning追踪，这项工作将实现该计划的目标，即寻求变革性的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任务的有效性：典型的问题解决和移情嵌入式问题解决在两门课程设计中：人文和STEM教师团队授课的HDSTEM设计，以及STEM教师在入门工程课程中的指导。课程处理将在两所大学，TTU和RIT进行比较。在考虑这两个机构的不同教师和教师的课程时，课程将通过共享典型和嵌入式解决问题的任务联系在一起。这些治疗的目的是加深STEM学生的同情和批判性思维的能力。与此同时，该项目将审查两个执行进程中的哪一个（即，HDSTEM课程和入门工程课程）表现更好。本研究将采用混合方法分析数据和结果。将收集、分析和比较多个数据源，以进行三角测量。将对课程开始和结束时收集的数据进行比较。话语和内容分析结合常用的批判性思维和同理心的评分标准，将衡量和评估课程处理的差异。 结果将显示HDSTEM环境对批判性思维和同理心的好处。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。该奖项反映了NSF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。