Collaborative Research: Sizing Up Physical Computing to Explore Threshold Concepts in Cyber-Physical Systems

随着信息物理系统（CPS）应用的不断发展，解决与培养具有CPS能力的有竞争力的美国劳动力相关的教育挑战和需求变得至关重要。然而，鉴于CPS技术相对年轻，一个关键的挑战在于描述掌握CPS所必需的关键概念。此外，缺乏协作性的CPS学习工具，导致学生有孤立学习的趋势，这与CPS设计实践的协作性相矛盾。该项目旨在通过设计和实现一个物理计算测试平台来克服这些挑战，该测试平台将促进基于问题的CPS概念的协作学习。该测试平台将允许学生小组围坐在一张桌子周围，使用有形的用户界面与CPS进行交互。作为非正式学习和意义建构的生成源，测试平台将有助于培养CPS教育的社会方法，同时促进我们对CPS掌握所需的学科特定概念的理解。该项目旨在为协作、基于问题的CPS学习开发一个物理计算测试平台，以探索和表征CPS学科的阈值概念——这些概念代表了在给定学科中集成多个概念的变革性的、可能难以掌握的想法。该项目将首先通过德尔菲研究吸引学术界和工业界的CPS专家，就掌握CPS所需的基本概念寻求共识。接下来，研究方法将阈值概念与基于问题的协作学习（PBL）相结合，以确定掌握CPS设计概念所需的关键形成性学习经验。这些关键的形成性学习经验，以学生为中心的阈值概念为基础，将通过让学生参与称为模型引出活动的多阶段问题场景来研究。在模型引出活动中，它们之间的相互作用和测试平台将使用建构主义理论进行分析。通过整合各种数据源，将创建一个全面的CPS概念清单和阈值概念的创新分类，从而对如何在CPS教育中最好地利用PBL和物理计算产生新的理解。研究结果将提高学术界的CPS学习能力，增强从业者的CPS设计能力，加强美国联邦机构在管理具有广泛社会影响的CPS生态系统方面的核心功能。该测试平台将使本科生能够通过协作游戏参与CPS学习，所产生的知识将有利于工业、国防和关键基础设施。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。

As the applications of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) continue to advance, it is becoming critical to address the educational challenges and needs associated with cultivating a competitive U.S. workforce with competence in CPS. However, given the relative youth of CPS technology, a crucial challenge lies in characterizing what key concepts are necessary for CPS mastery. Furthermore, the lack of collaborative CPS learning tools has resulted in a trend of solitary learning practices among students, which contradicts the collaborative nature of CPS design practice. This project seeks to overcome these challenges by designing and implementing a physical computing testbed that will foster problem-based, collaborative learning of CPS concepts. The testbed will allow groups of students, co-located around a table, to interact with CPS using a tangible-user interface. As a generative source of informal learning and sense-making, the testbed will help foster a social approach to CPS education, while advancing our understanding of the discipline-specific concepts required for CPS mastery.The project aims to develop a physical computing testbed for collaborative, problem-based CPS learning to explore and characterize the CPS discipline’s threshold concepts – which represent transformative, and potentially difficult-to-grasp, ideas that integrate multiple concepts in a given discipline. The project will first engage CPS experts in academia and industry through a Delphi study to seek consensus on the fundamental concepts necessary for CPS mastery. Next, the research approach will intersect threshold concepts with collaborative problem-based learning (PBL) to identify key formative learning experiences necessary for mastering CPS design concepts. These key formative learning experiences, anchored in student-centered threshold concepts, will be investigated by engaging students in multi-stage problem scenarios called model-eliciting activities. During the model-eliciting activities, their interactions with one another and the testbed will be analyzed using constructivist grounded theory. A comprehensive CPS concept inventory and innovative classification of threshold concepts will be created by integrating the various data sources, leading to a new understanding of how best to leverage PBL and physical computing in CPS education. The findings will improve CPS learning capabilities in academia and enhance CPS design capabilities for practitioners, strengthening the core function of U.S. federal agencies in administering CPS ecosystems with broad societal impacts. The testbed will empower undergraduate students to engage in CPS learning through collaborative play, and the knowledge generated will benefit industry, defense, and critical infrastructure.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.