Improving Undergraduate Engineering Education through Student-Centered, Active and Cooperative Learning

犹他州立大学的“通过以学生为中心、积极和合作的学习来改善本科工程教育”项目包括一个多方面的计划，以增加进入劳动力市场的工程师的数量、多样性和质量。该项目将为机械工程、航空航天工程、土木工程和环境工程专业的26名本科生提供四年奖学金。该项目响应了总统就业与竞争力委员会的呼吁，即需要更多的工程师来满足国家的技术劳动力需求。奖学金将允许有才华和经济困难的学生减少花在工作上的时间来支付学费和费用，并把时间花在学习和其他有利于学生毕业和进入工程专业的活动上。为了扩大参与，该项目将包括通过针对经济困难学生和代表性不足群体的实体进行招聘。根据国家研究委员会“人们如何学习”研究的建议，该项目将建立由教师导师领导的两个系之间组织的学习社区。该计划将利用现有的学生教育支持和专业发展服务，包括：补充指导（辅导和同伴学习小组），本科研究，实地考察，实习和合作，以及职业咨询。此外，他们将在几个工程课程中增加研究证明的教学实践（如基于问题的学习和基于项目的学习）的使用，以改善所有学生的学习环境，而不仅仅是项目学者。该计划将为工程学院的教师提供研讨会，以促进采用经研究证明的教学法，并改善学院所有六个系的教学。形成性和总结性评估将由外部评估人员进行。该项目将通过期刊、会议和网络资源向全国K-16 STEM教育界提供有关项目成果和经验教训的信息。

The Improving Undergraduate Engineering Education through Student-Centered, Active and Cooperative Learning project at Utah State University involves a multi-fold plan to increase the number, diversity, and quality of engineers entering the workforce. The project will provide four-year scholarships to 26 undergraduate students majoring in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Civil Engineering, and Environmental Engineering. The project responds to the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness' call for more engineers to meet the nation's technological workforce needs. The scholarships will allow talented and financially needy students to reduce the time spent working to cover tuition and expenses and devote time to study and other activities beneficial to students' ability to graduate and enter the engineering profession. To broaden participation, the project will include recruitment through entities which target economically disadvantaged students and underrepresented groups. Informed by recommendations from the National Research Council's "How People Learn" study, the program will institute learning communities, organized between two departments led by faculty mentors. The program will take advantage of existing student educational support and professional development services including: supplemental instruction (tutoring & peer study groups), undergraduate research, field trips, internships and co-ops, and career counseling. Further, they will increase use of research-proven instructional practices (such as problem-based learning and project-based learning) in several engineering classes to enhance the learning environment for all students, not just program scholars. The program will offer seminars to College of Engineering faculty to promote adoption of research-proven pedagogies and improve teaching and learning in all six College departments. Formative and summative evaluation will be performed by an external evaluator. The project will provide information on program outcomes and lessons learned from the project to the K-16 STEM education community nationwide by dissemination through journals, conferences, and web resources.