Further Development of an Open Educational Resource to Improve Architectural Engineering Students’ Conceptual Knowledge When Writing to Learn

对核心工程基础的概念性理解使工程师能够预测系统的行为，确定问题的适当解决方案，选择相关的设计过程，并解释他们周围的世界是如何工作的。概念理解是指对概念的丰富认知表征，包括具体和抽象，例如砖石饰面墙复合材料如何与热能原理保持一致。这种概念性的理解是必不可少的，但新进入大学的学生，甚至最近的毕业生通常误解的工程概念，需要解决即使是简单的问题，在现实世界的实践。在本科生培训的早期解决这一差距将为培养下一代工程师奠定更坚实的基础，这些工程师对我们国家的经济弹性和未来在国际舞台上的竞争力至关重要。这个项目开发的软件和方法提供了即时反馈的摘要写作练习，以支持真实的课堂讲授和讨论。该项目的更广泛的好处包括研究结果和软件可以补充和扩展其他STEM写作技巧。该软件将被设计为快速和简单的设置由课程讲师，并可以在任何内容领域使用，因此它有可能在任何STEM课程在本科甚至高中水平的广泛应用。该软件和方法可以自动扩展到有大量注册的课程，例如为数万名学生提供服务的大型开放式在线工程课程，从而以很少的额外成本为这些课程增加更深层次的概念参与。带有反馈的摘要写作，也称为书面学习，是建立概念理解的有效方法，但评分论文非常耗时，特别是在大量注册的课程中。 第二个基于证据的方法来提高学生的概念理解是有意和明确地包括领域知识的概念表示在课程中，例如，使用网络图作为个人反馈和课堂讨论。当学生使用网络图时，他们的概念模型的形式变得更像专家的模型。结合这些发现，这个为期2年的跨学科研究和软件开发项目将调查的知识结构反馈的影响，作为网络图的教训概念时，通过教育透镜研究的工程领域学习写作。这四项调查将依次比较（1）有网络反馈的写作与没有写作，（2）有网络反馈的写作与没有反馈的写作，（3）有网络反馈的写作，有或没有教师对课程概念结构的延迟解释作为播客，以及（4）有网络反馈的写作，有或没有教师在讲座期间对课程概念结构的即时解释。在这个项目中的四个调查有可能添加到已知的理论和实践知识结构网络作为反馈机制时，写学习STEM课程。这四个调查的结果可以告知明确教学领域知识的概念结构，以增强传统的教学方法的潜力，并扩展写作学习STEM内容的研究，包括反馈的概念网络结构。研究结果将通过网络研讨会，社交媒体，持久的项目网站，期刊，研讨会和会议演示文稿进行传播。开发的软件将通过项目网站作为开放式教育资源向公众提供。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。

Conceptual understanding of core engineering fundamentals enables engineers to predict how a system will behave, to determine appropriate solutions to problems, to choose relevant design processes, and to explain how the world around them works. Conceptual understanding refers to rich cognitive representations of concepts, both concrete and abstract, such as how a masonry veneer wall composite aligns with heat energy principles. Such conceptual understanding is essential, yet newly entering college students and even recent graduates commonly misperceive the engineering concepts needed to solve even simple problems in real-world practice. Addressing this gap early in undergraduate training will lay a stronger foundation for building the next generation of engineers who are vital for our nation’s economic resilience and future competitiveness on the international stage. The software and approach developed by this project provides summary writing exercises with immediate feedback to support classroom lecture and discussion in real time. The broader benefits of this project include that the research findings and the software can complement and extend other STEM writing pedagogies. The software will be designed to be quick and simple to set up by a course instructor and can be used in any content area, thus it has potentially wide application in any STEM course at the undergraduate and even high school levels. The software and approach automatically scale to courses with large enrollments, for example massive open online engineering courses that serve tens of thousands of students, thus adding deeper conceptual engagement to these courses at little extra cost.Summary writing with feedback, also called writing-to-learn, is an effective way to build conceptual understanding, but grading essays is time consuming especially in large enrollment courses. A second evidence-based way to improve students’ conceptual understanding is to intentionally and explicitly include domain knowledge conceptual representations in courses, for example, using network graphs as individual feedback and for classroom discussions. When students use network graphs, the form of their conceptual model becomes more like an expert’s model. Combining these findings, this 2-year interdisciplinary research and software development project will investigate the influence of knowledge structure feedback as network graphs of lesson concepts when writing to learn in the engineering domain studied through an educational lens. The four investigations, in order, will compare (1) writing with network feedback to no writing, (2) writing with network feedback to writing without feedback, (3) writing with network feedback with or without delayed instructor explanations of the lesson conceptual structure as podcasts, and (4) writing with network feedback with or without immediate instructor explanations of the lesson conceptual structure during lectures. The four investigations in this project have potential to add to the known theory and practice regarding knowledge structure networks as feedback mechanisms when writing to learn in STEM courses. Results of these four investigations could inform the potential of explicitly teaching domain knowledge conceptual structure to augment traditional teaching approaches, and extend the writing to learn STEM content research to include feedback as conceptual network structure. The research findings will be disseminated through webinars, social media, a persistent project website, journals, workshops, and conference presentations. The software developed will be available to the public as an open education resource through the project website. 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.