MOBILE STUDIO ENVIRONMENTS TO ENHANCE STEM EDUCATION

该项目由伦斯勒理工学院、霍华德大学和罗斯-霍尔曼理工学院合作，奥尔巴尼大学作为评估组织。该提案的目标是开发一种低成本、以实验为中心的教学法，使教师和学生能够随时随地（教室、图书馆、工会、宿舍等）实现基于实验室仪器的移动工作室环境。作为该项目的一部分，正在为两门课程（电路和电子仪器）中的每门课程设计、开发、利用、评估和传播20个基于工作室的移动演示、20个课堂活动和20个后续的带回家的实验。在这些课程中，所有的学生都为每个给定的问题设计自己的实验程序，在课堂上测试他们的想法，然后在他们选择的时间和地点完成课外活动。该方法使用I/O板，估计成本为130美元，以显着降低的成本复制示波器，函数发生器，万用表和电源的功能。所有学生，包括来自弱势背景的学生、有特殊需求的学生、远程学习者和资源有限的机构的学生，现在都可以全天候使用最先进的仪器设备。这种方法允许教育工作者将更多动态的、动手的机会融入到教学中，以接触和激励今天更多样化的学生群体，这些学生通常不像前几代人那样带着同样多的实践经验进入大学。这些努力由一个由工业界和学术界代表组成的咨询小组指导。在外部评估人员的指导下，一项广泛的评估计划正在使用教师访谈、学生调查和访谈以及对学生的观察来表征该方法的有效性。研究人员正在通过标准的出版机制、一系列教师研讨会和网络研讨会以及国家仪器公司的出版材料传播他们的想法和结果。更广泛的影响包括材料的传播，特别是通过教师研讨会和行业联系，包括HBCU在内的几个机构的参与，以及K-12的推广。

Engineering - Electrical (55)This project is a collaboration among Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Howard University, and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology with the University of Albany as the evaluating organization The goal of this proposal is to develop a low-cost, experimentation centric pedagogy that allows faculty and students to implement a laboratory instrumentation based mobile studio environment anywhere (classroom, library, union, dorm, etc.) at anytime. As a part of the project, 20 mobile studio-based demonstrations, 20 in-class activities, and 20 follow-up, take-home experiments are being designed, developed, utilized, evaluated and disseminated for each of two courses (Electric Circuits and Electronics Instrumentation). In these courses, all students are devising their own experimental procedures for each given problem, testing their ideas in class, and then completing an activity outside of class at their choice of time and place. The approach uses an I/O Board, with an estimated cost of $130 that replicates the functionality of an oscilloscope, function generator, multimeter, and power supplies at a significantly lower cost. Students from all demographics -- including those from disadvantaged backgrounds, students with special needs, distance learners, and students attending resource-limited institutions -- can now have 24/7 access to state-of-the-art instrumentation capabilities. This approach allows educators to incorporate more dynamic, hands-on opportunities into the pedagogy to reach and motivate today's more diverse student populations, who typically do not enter college with the same amount of practical experience that prior generations had. The efforts are being guided by an advisory group with representatives from both industry and academia. An extensive evaluation plan, under the direction of an external evaluator, is using faculty interviews, student surveys and interviews, and observations of students to characterize the effectiveness of the approach. The investigators are disseminating their ideas and results through standard publication mechanisms, through a series of faculty workshops and webinars, and through National Instruments's published materials. The broader impacts include the dissemination of the material, particularly though faculty workshops and industrial connections, the involvement of several institutions, including an HBCU, and the K-12 outreach.