IUSE/PFE:RED A&I Curriculum integration through collaborative teaching and mentoring: adapting an integrated system for engineering formation

由于技术的快速进步，基础知识的不断发展，以及学生感知和处理信息的方式的快速变化，工程教育面临着重大挑战。这种环境激励着工程课程和教学方法的不断发展。传统教学方法带来的一个困难是，课程由不同的教师独立教授，很少努力强调学科之间的关系和共性。另一个问题是，在大多数大学里，实践活动和基于项目的学习机会有限。该项目将引入几项课程改革，从个人主义的教学方法和文化向更全面、更协作的教学方法转变，不断建立学科之间的联系，以项目为基础的学习成为常态。预计这将显著改善学生体验，增加学生与教师的互动，提高学生的保留率，并发展学生技能，这是扩大我国技术领先地位和创新基础设施所必需的。该项目旨在改变伦斯勒理工学院（RPI）机械、航空航天和核工程（MANE）部门的文化，从传统的工程孤立方法转变为综合协作方法。本项目的核心研究问题是：1)系文化与教学法的转变如何影响学生的学习成果和学习经验；2)将大型公立大学单一专业系的教学模式复制到规模较小的私立大学多专业系的成功程度。这些研究问题将通过复制科罗拉多州立大学（CSU） nsf支持的项目“革命性的角色来重新构想工程形成的集成系统”的成功实施来解决。该项目通过使学生更好地理解不同学科如何结合在一起以及课程主题如何应用于实际工程问题，从而改变了工程教育。该计划的重要组成部分包括纳米课程（或“及时”知识传递），课程中学科之间的知识整合活动，以及垂直整合和开放式项目。我们将采用多方法研究的方法来了解本系CSU项目的实施情况。我们将采用自然准实验设计，采用混合方法（观察、焦点小组、访谈、调查、二手数据分析），为期四年，涵盖各级教育，以评估实施的影响。在短期内，我们的主要预期结果是教师的教学文化发生了变化，学生的参与度和学习程度有所提高，学生对看似不同的学科有了更好的理解。从长远来看，我们预计工程专业学生的保留率将会增加，尤其是少数族裔学生。如果RPI实验和CSU一样成功，这将证明该模型是可行的，可以更广泛地实施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

Engineering education faces significant challenges due to rapid technological advances, the continuous evolution of base knowledge, and rapid changes in the way students perceive and process information. This environment motivates the continuous development of the engineering curriculum and teaching methods. One difficulty arising from the traditional instruction methods is that courses are taught independently by different instructors, with little effort to underline the relationships and commonalities between disciplines. Another concern is related to the limited access to hands-on activities and project-based learning in most colleges. This project will introduce several curricular changes supported by a radical change of teaching methods and culture from an individualistic approach to a more comprehensive, collaborative teaching method, with connections between disciplines being continuously established and project-based learning becoming the norm. This is expected to lead to a significant enhancement of the student experience, increased student-teacher interaction, increased student retention and development of student skills needed to expand our nation’s technical lead and innovation infrastructure.This project aims to change the culture in the Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering (MANE) Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) from a traditional engineering siloed approach to an integrated and collaborative approach. The central research questions addressed in this project are: 1) how student learning outcomes and learning experience are impacted by the transformation of the department culture in relationship to pedagogy; and 2) how successful is the replication of a pedagogical model developed in a single-program department of a large public university when applied to a multi-program department of a smaller private college. These research questions will be addressed by replicating the successful implementation of Colorado State University (CSU) NSF-supported project “Revolutionizing Roles to Reimagine Integrated Systems of Engineering Formation”. This program transformed engineering education by enabling students to better understand how different disciplines are coming together and course topics are applied in practical engineering problems. Important components of this program include nanocourses (or “just in time” knowledge delivery), knowledge integration activities between disciplines within the curriculum, and vertically integrated and open-ended projects. We will follow a multi-method research approach to understand the implementation of the CSU program in our department. We will use a natural quasi-experimental design with mixed-methods (observation, focus groups, interviews, surveys, secondary data analysis) over a period of four years, across all levels of education, for assessing the impact of the implementation. Our primary expected outcomes over the short term are a changed pedagogical culture among faculty, an increase in student engagement and learning, and a better student understanding of seemingly disparate disciplines. Over the long term, we anticipate an increase in retention of engineering students, especially underrepresented minority students. Should the RPI experiment be as successful as the CSU one, it will be a demonstration that the model is viable to be implemented more broadly.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.