SBIR Phase I: Engaging Undergraduate Engineering Students in Authentic Inquiry

SBIR第一阶段项目将测试一种新产品的可行性，该产品旨在帮助学生在本科工程课程中取得成功。美国未能培养出足够的工程师，以在全球市场上竞争。研究表明，本科生在遇到更复杂的工程概念时会遇到困难，并负责设计工程问题的解决方案。这导致缺乏参与，因为他们没有预见到自己是成功的工程师。该产品将是创建虚拟世界的软件，学生的任务是为真实的世界工程问题设计解决方案。它将基于学习的基础理论和之前NSF资助的研究，并将使学生能够发展和磨练批判性思维和设计技能。当学生解决问题时，学生数据将被真实的发送给他们的老师，以帮助老师立即识别可能在特定概念或设计技能方面遇到困难的学生。 该项目支持NSF的使命，即支持科学和工程教育，帮助学生发展追求高薪工程职业所需的技能，并为美国经济做出贡献。该项目的创新之处在于开发了一个软件平台，在该平台中，设计有效的工程解决方案所需的批判性思维技能可以得到描述和完善。该平台将包括基于支撑基础工程概念的物理学的模拟，这将帮助学生在为真实的世界问题设计解决方案时，通过真实的探究来发展设计技能。该软件还将包括一个真实的时间数据系统，报告学生设计决策的启发式质量，并内置于一个形成性评估工具，使教师能够衡量学生随着时间的推移设计技能的发展。该项目的目标将是确定工程设计技能是否可以有效地定义，完善和使用作为一套产品的新的教学基础，以满足美国工程学院的需求。该产品在提高本科生学习困难的工程概念和发展设计技能的功效将在美国大学工程课程中进行测试。

This SBIR Phase I project will test the feasibility of a new product aimed at helping students succeed in undergraduate engineering courses. The US is failing to produce enough engineers required to compete in the global marketplace. Research has shown that undergraduate students struggle when they encounter more complex engineering concepts and are tasked with designing solutions to engineering problems. This leads to a lack of engagement as they do not foresee themselves as being successful engineers. The product will be software that creates virtual worlds in which students are tasked with designing solutions for real world engineering problems. It will be based on foundational theories of learning and prior NSF-funded research, and will enable students to develop and hone critical thinking and design skills. As students work through the problem, student data will be sent to their teachers in real time to help teachers immediately identify students that may be struggling with a particular concept or design skill. This project supports the mission of the NSF to support education in science and engineering and help students develop the skills required to pursue well paid engineering careers and contribute to the US economy. The innovation underpinning this project is the development of a software platform in which the critical thinking skills required to design effective engineering solutions can be delineation and refined. This platform will include simulations based on the physics underpinning foundational engineering concepts that will help students develop design skills through authentic inquiry as they design solutions for real world problems. The software will also include a real time data system that reports on the heuristic quality of student design decisions and builds into a formative assessment tool that will enable teachers to measure the development of design skills by their students over time. The goals of this project will be to determine whether engineering design skills can be effectively defined, refined and used as a new pedagogical basis for a suite of products to address the needs of US engineering colleges. The efficacy of the product in improving undergraduate student learning of difficult engineering concepts and development of design skills will be tested in a US college engineering course.