NRT-UtB: Science of learning, from neurobiology to real-world application: a problem-based approach

学习是人类智力发展的基础，学习的过程贯穿我们的一生。也许最重要的是，我们学习的方式和内容决定了我们是谁。这个项目有两个目的，一是实现对学习的更深入的科学理解，二是向科学家和公众传达对学习科学的更深入理解。几十年来，包括遗传学、神经科学、语言学、教育和心理学在内的不同领域已经产生了关于人类如何学习的无数方面的丰富知识，但一个巨大的挑战仍然存在：将这些知识整合到基于这些不同领域的学习的统一理解中，从基因到神经元、大脑和人类行为。这项授予康涅狄格大学的国家科学基金会研究培训（NRT）奖将帮助下一代研究人员做好迎接这一挑战的准备。这个以学习科学为重点的实习项目将培养50名博士生，其中包括25名受资助的博士生，他们来自教育、遗传学、语言学、心理学、神经科学和语言听力科学。通过强调以问题为基础的方法（在实践中学习），拥抱跨广泛学科的合作，并整合沟通和领导技能的实践培训，使有效的多学科项目设计，管理和科学发现成为可能，该计划将为学员在学术界，工业界和公共部门的一系列职业生涯提供独特的准备。该培训计划有五个主要组成部分：为期一年的密集研讨会，调查所有参与领域的学习科学；实践实习，学员学习设计和实施多学科研究；师生研究兴趣小组，为新的科学挑战提供集思广益的平台；数据管理模块；以及拓展和沟通方面的综合培训。研讨会提供了学习科学和技术交流挑战的跨学科介绍，而实习课程强调研究生教育经常缺乏的学术和非学术职业中至关重要的实用技能：项目设计和管理，预算和资源分配，以及外部交流。研究兴趣小组将随着实践中出现的有希望的研究建议而发展，它既是研究的焦点，也是参与者的组织结构。从项目的第一天起，学生们就面临着如何在不假设已有知识或依赖技术术语的情况下清晰有效地分享想法的挑战，这种技能不仅能使研究取得卓越成就，还能使学员成为他们的工作对整个社会的大使。该项目还将通过招聘和保留方面的最佳实践，促进需要高级培训的职业的多样性。美国国家科学基金会研究实习生（NRT）计划旨在鼓励开发和实施大胆的、具有潜在变革性的STEM研究生教育培训新模式。通过创新的、基于证据的、与不断变化的劳动力和研究需求相一致的综合培训模式，培训项目致力于在高优先级跨学科研究领域对STEM研究生进行有效培训。

Learning is the basis of human mental development and the process of learning continues throughout our lives. Perhaps more than anything else, how and what we learn shapes who we are. This project has the dual aims of achieving a deeper scientific understanding of learning, and communicating a deeper understanding of the science of learning to scientists and the public. Over several decades, diverse fields including genetics, neuroscience, linguistics, education, and psychology have generated a wealth of knowledge about myriad aspects of how humans learn, but a grand challenge remains: to integrate that knowledge into a unified understanding of learning based on these diverse fields, and on scales ranging from the gene to the neuron, brain, and human behavior. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to the University of Connecticut will help prepare the next generation of researchers to meet this challenge. The traineeship, focusing on the science of learning, will train fifty (50) PhD students, including twenty-five (25) funded trainees, from education, genetics, linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, and speech-language-hearing sciences. By emphasizing a problem-based approach (learning by doing), embracing collaboration across a broad a spectrum of disciplines, and integrating hands-on training in communication and leadership skills that enable effective multidisciplinary project design, management, and scientific discovery, this program will offer trainees unique preparation for a range of careers in academia, industry, and the public sector. The training program has five major components: an intensive one-year seminar that surveys the science of learning across all participating fields, a hands-on practicum where trainees learn to design and implement multidisciplinary research, faculty-student research interest groups that serve as brainstorming launch pads for new scientific challenges, data stewardship modules, and integrated training in outreach and communication. The seminar provides a cross-disciplinary introduction to the science of learning and the challenge of technical communication, while the practicum emphasizes practical skills crucial in academic and nonacademic careers that graduate education too often lacks: project design and management, budgeting and resource allocation, and external communications. The research interest groups, which will evolve as promising research proposals emerge from the practicum, serve as both focal point for research and organizational structure for the participants. From their first day in the program, students face the challenge of how to clearly and effectively share ideas without assuming prior knowledge or relying on technical jargon, a skill that not only enables excellence in research, but empowers trainees to become ambassadors for their work to society as a whole. This program will also promote diversity in careers requiring advanced training through best practices in recruitment and retention.The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The Traineeship Track is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary research areas, through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.