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

IUSE/PFE：红色 A

• 批准号: 2235345
• 负责人: Antoinette Maniatty
• 金额: $ 99.89万
• 依托单位: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-08-01 至 2027-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2235345&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: IUSE; PFE; RED; A&I; Curriculum

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.

由于快速的技术进步，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，工程教育面临着巨大的挑战。这种环境推动了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，几乎没有努力强调学科之间的关系和共性。另一个令人担忧的问题与大多数大学的实践活动和基于项目的学习机会有限有关。该项目将在教学方法和文化从个人主义到更全面、更协作的教学方法的根本改变的支持下，引入几项课程改革，学科之间的联系不断建立，基于项目的学习成为常态。该项目旨在将伦斯勒理工学院(RPI)机械、航空和核工程(MANE)系的文化从传统的工程孤立方式转变为一种综合协作的方式。本项目涉及的中心研究问题是：1)与教育学相关的系文化的转变如何影响学生的学习结果和学习体验；2)在大型公立大学的单一专业系开发的教学模式应用于较小的私立学院的多个专业系时，成功程度如何。这些研究问题将通过复制科罗拉多州立大学(CSU)国家科学基金会(NSF)支持的项目“变革角色以重新想象工程形成的综合系统”的成功实施来解决。该项目通过让学生更好地了解不同学科是如何结合在一起的，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。这一计划的重要组成部分包括纳米课程(或“及时”知识传授)、课程内各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CSU项目在我们部门的实施情况。我们将使用自然的准实验设计，采用混合方法(观察法、焦点小组法、访谈法、调查法、次级数据分析法)，在四年的时间里，对所有各级教育进行评估，以评估实施的影响。我们在短期内的主要预期结果是，教职员工的教学文化发生了变化，学生的参与度和学习能力有所提高，学生对看似不同的学科有了更好的理解。从长远来看，我们预计工科学生的留校率会增加，特别是代表不足的少数族裔学生。如果RPI的实验像CSU的实验一样成功，它将证明该模型是可行的，可以更广泛地实施。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。