Improving Career Readiness for Engineering Students Through a Mentored Living Learning Community

通过指导的生活学习社区提高工程专业学生的职业准备

• 批准号: 2221404
• 负责人: Blair McDonald
• 金额: $ 75万
• 依托单位: Western Illinois 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: 2022-12-15 至 2027-11-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2221404&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Improving; Career; Readiness; Engineering; Students

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 Illinois University, a state-supported Rural Serving Institution (RSI) in west central Illinois. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 16 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in engineering or engineering technology. First year students will receive four-year scholarships. This project is centered on career readiness through a mentored living learning community and early exposure to the role of engineering in the workplace. Scholars will gain the needed mindset and self-efficacy to excel in and graduate career-ready from a four-year engineering program. Living learning communities will provide scholars with social and community supports to improve student resilience. Peer mentors and learning assistants will help scholars in achieving learning outcomes and provide guidance on acclimating to college life. A summer camp to recruit students from rural high schools will provide students with an opportunity to learn the fundamentals of engineering and work with engineering technologies. The project will develop highly trained engineering professionals including students from rural backgrounds, thus improving their economic prospects and meeting local and national workforce demands. Contributions to the knowledge and practice related to higher education of low- income, rural students will include: (1) the effectiveness of living learning communities; (2) an understanding how a cohort model supports students both inside and outside of the classroom; and (3) the effectiveness of evidence-based teaching strategies and early exposure to engineering.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. This project aims to recruit rural students, retain scholars, and improve four-year graduation rates through research-validated student support activities. The project team will evaluate the degree to which living learning communities, early project-based engineering curricula, and internships are effective in increasing student understanding of career paths and motivation to pursue engineering education and employment. The evaluation study will address three questions: (1) To what extent do living-learning communities contribute to the resilience and success of under-resourced engineering students? (2) Does the cohort model for classroom and non-classroom-based activities decrease the stress and culture shock of under-resourced students? (3) Does including student-centered projects and experiential learning early in engineering increase students’ progress toward a degree and the likelihood that they remain focused on a degree? A mixed methods approach will be used to answer these questions based on student surveys and institutional data on student retention and progress. The project findings will be shared with the engineering education community through regional and national conferences and publications so that other institutions can adopt similar practices. 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.

该项目将有助于对受过良好教育的科学家，数学家，工程师和技术人员的国家需求，通过支持高成就，低收入学生的保留和毕业，证明在西伊利诺伊大学，一个国家支持的农村服务机构（RSI）在中西部伊利诺伊州的经济需要。在五年的时间里，该项目将为16名攻读工程或工程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。该项目的重点是通过指导生活学习社区和早期接触工程在工作场所的作用的职业准备。学者将获得所需的心态和自我效能，从四年的工程计划中脱颖而出，并为毕业生做好职业准备。生活学习社区将为学者提供社会和社区支持，以提高学生的适应力。同侪导师和学习助理将帮助学生取得学习成果，并提供适应大学生活的指导。从农村高中招收学生的夏令营将为学生提供学习工程基础知识和使用工程技术的机会。该项目将培养训练有素的工程专业人员，包括来自农村背景的学生，从而改善他们的经济前景，满足当地和国家的劳动力需求。对低收入农村学生高等教育相关知识和实践的贡献将包括：（1）生活学习社区的有效性;（2）理解队列模式如何在课堂内外支持学生;（三）证据的效力--基于教学策略和早期接触工程。该项目的总体目标是增加低收入，表现优异的本科生，并证明有经济需求。该项目旨在招收农村学生，留住学者，并通过经研究验证的学生支助活动提高四年制毕业率。项目团队将评估生活学习社区，早期基于项目的工程课程和实习在提高学生对职业道路的理解和追求工程教育和就业的动机方面的有效程度。评估研究将解决三个问题：（1）在多大程度上做生活学习社区有助于资源不足的工程专业学生的应变能力和成功？(2)课堂和非课堂活动的队列模式是否减少了资源不足学生的压力和文化冲击？(3)在工程学的早期，包括以学生为中心的项目和体验式学习是否会增加学生获得学位的进度以及他们继续专注于学位的可能性？一个混合的方法将被用来回答这些问题的基础上，学生调查和机构数据的学生保留和进步。将通过区域和国家会议和出版物与工程教育界分享项目结果，以便其他机构可以采用类似的做法。该项目由NSF的科学，技术，工程和数学奖学金计划资助，该计划旨在增加低收入学术人才的数量，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。