Research Initiation Grant: Interactive Learning to Stimulate the Brain's Visual Center and to Enhance Memory Retention

这项工程教育研究启动拨款将支持一项调查，调查手势和身体识别的新技术如何帮助学生更好地学习与空间和视觉理解密切相关的工程概念。该项目将邀请来自工程学、计算机科学和心理学的研究人员进行一项结构良好的实验，使用经过验证的仪器来测试新技术是否改善了生物医学工程的学习。这个项目的更广泛的意义和重要性将主要是确定新的、负担得起的和商业上可用的技术是否可以影响困难的工程学概念的学习。不同学科的研究人员之间的牢固伙伴关系将在跨学科研究中建立网络。此外，还计划对当地高中传统上STEM代表性不足的学生进行外联工作，这可以改善这些学生进入工程专业的招生情况。该项目与NSF的战略目标相重叠，即通过投资于新兴的工程新领域或转移现有领域来改造边界。此外，NSF为社会创新的目标是通过支持创新学习系统的发展而实现的。

This engineering education research initiation grant will support an investigation into how new technologies for gesture and body recognition can help students better learn engineering concepts that are strongly tied to spatial and visual understanding. The project will engage researchers from engineering, computer science, and psychology in a well-structured experiment using validated instruments to test if the new technologies improve learning in biomedical engineering. The broader significance and importance of this project will primarily be to determine if new, affordable, and commercially available technologies can impact learning of difficult engineering concepts. The strong partnership between researchers in different disciplines will build networks in cross-disciplinary research. Additionally an outreach effort to students traditionally under-represented in STEM at local high schools is planned, which can improve recruitment of these students to engineering programs. This project overlaps with NSF's strategic goals of transforming the frontiers by making investments that lead to emerging new fields of engineering, or shifting existing fields. Additionally NSF's goal of innovating for society is enabled by supporting the development of innovative learning systems.