EAGER: MAKER: Maker Fridays: Engaging Rural and Underrepresented High School Students in Pre-Engineering Design and Creativity

继续需要增加攻读和完成工程学位的学生的数量和多样性，以满足当前和未来的国家劳动力需求。工程领域努力发展足够的兴趣和持续参与在代表性不足的人口群体，包括妇女和来自农村，西班牙裔或美洲原住民的个人。该项目通过开发一门课程，让农村和代表性不足的高中学生参与制造商设计和创造力，并确定吸引和留住这些学生的最佳做法，解决了进入工程领域的不同学生的短缺问题。在学生决定职业道路的形成期培养对工程的兴趣至关重要。该学院创建了一个星期五@东北计划，目标是高中毕业生，为他们提供机会，从东北实验室空间和教室的大学教师学习，以获得早期的大学学分。利用这个平台，一个预工程多学科设计课程与一个制造商设计领域的合并增强教两个社区学院的校园高中生。一个制造商设计区配备了一套原型和模型开发工具和设备，让学生进行活动，提高解决问题和创造力，而课程消除误解，并将工程职业转变为有形和可行的选择。校园之间的学生多样性的变化，如种族，民族，或农村/大都市的起源，促进教育研究开发的兴趣在工程职业的发展，为来自不同背景的学生的理论解释。研究人员正在调查这些活动如何增加解决问题和创造力的经验，以及他们如何影响不同的高中生中学后职业途径选择进入工程和STEM相关的职业。该项目通过创建一门课程，让农村和代表性不足的高中生参与创客设计和创造力，并确定吸引学生的最佳实践，留住这些学生。高中生提供学习活动和职业探索，帮助他们了解工程设计和创造力，同时获得大学学分。教育研究人员与教师合作，通过多阶段混合方法设计收集数据，为来自不同背景的学生对工程职业的兴趣发展提供理论解释。他们收集学生背景，学术准备，工程观念，职业兴趣，课程参与度和整体学生体验的基线和相关持续数据。这是通过学生评估，兴趣清单，记录类会议的审查，并在人的类访问的组合。这项研究将为来自代表性不足的人口群体（包括女性和来自农村、西班牙裔或美洲原住民的个人）的学生对工程职业兴趣的发展提供理论解释。该项目得出的理论模型将在全州范围内的教育会议上分享，并在全国范围内向中学，中学后机构和国家科学教师协会和美国工程教育协会会议的行业分享。此外，包括课程，技术报告和去识别链接的支持数据在内的项目材料将与内布拉斯加大学林肯的数字共享开放访问存储库中更大的STEM社区共享。为了保留数据访问权，将把去识别数据集和研究码本作为公共使用数据文件提交给密歇根大学政治和社会研究大学间联合会，随后将其创建为实质性元数据。总体而言，该项目支持对未经测试但可能具有变革性的研究进行探索性工作，这些研究将为代表性不足的人口群体的学生对工程职业的兴趣发展提供理论解释，并将促进对工程师专业形成的理解。

There is a continued need to increase the number and diversity of students who pursue and complete engineering degrees to meet current and future national workforce needs. The engineering field struggles to develop sufficient interest and sustained participation across underrepresented demographic groups including women and individuals from rural, Hispanic, or Native American origin. This project addresses the shortage of diverse students entering into engineering fields by developing a course to engage rural and underrepresented high school students in maker design and creativity and to determine best practices that attract and retain these students. It is critical to foster interest in engineering during formative years when students are deciding career paths. The College created a Fridays@Northeast program that targets high school seniors, offering them the opportunity to learn from College faculty in Northeast lab spaces and classrooms to earn early college credit. Using this platform, a Pre-Engineering Multidisciplinary Design course augmented with the incorporation of a maker design area is taught at two of the community college's campuses to high school students. A maker design area outfitted with a set of prototype and model development tools and equipment allows the students to conduct activities that increase problem-solving and creativity while the course dispels misconceptions and transforms careers in engineering into a tangible and viable option. Variability in the student diversity between the campuses, such as racial, ethnic, or rural/metropolitan origin, facilitates educational research to develop a theoretical explanation for the development of interest in engineering careers for students from diverse backgrounds. Researchers are investigating how the activities increase problem-solving and creativity experiences, and how they influence diverse high school student postsecondary career pathway selection into engineering and STEM related careers.This project addresses the shortage of diverse students entering into engineering fields by creating a course that engages rural and underrepresented high school students in maker design and creativity and determines the best practices that attract and retain these students. The high school students are provided learning activities and career exploration that help them understand engineering design and creativity while earning college credit. Educational researchers work with instructors to collect data through a multi-phase mixed methods design to develop a theoretical explanation for the development of interest in engineering careers for students from diverse backgrounds. They collect baseline and relevant continuing data on student background, academic preparation, engineering perceptions, career interests, course engagement, and overall student experiences. This is accomplished through a combination of student assessments, interest inventories, recorded class sessions reviews, and in-person class visits. This research will create a theoretical explanation for the development of interest in engineering careers for students from underrepresented demographic groups including women and individuals from rural, Hispanic, or Native American origin. The theoretical models derived by the project will be shared in state-wide education conferences and nationally to secondary schools, post-secondary institutions, and industry at National Science Teachers Association and American Society for Engineering Education conferences. In addition, project materials including curriculum, technical reports, and de-identified linked supporting data will be shared with the larger STEM community at the University of Nebraska Lincoln's Digital Commons open access repository. To preserve data access, the de-identified dataset and study codebook will be submitted to the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan as public-use data files and will subsequently be created into substantive metadata. Overall, this project supports exploratory work on untested, but potentially transformative research that will create a theoretical explanation for the development of interest in engineering careers for students from underrepresented demographic groups and will advance understanding of the professional formation of engineers.