EAGER:Identifying and Disseminating Transformative Professional Development of Engineering Undergraduates Who Perform Outreach

科学、技术、工程和数学专业的本科生不仅需要具备较强的技术技能进入劳动力大军，还需要具有较强的写作、演示和团队合作等专业技能。不幸的是，许多行业领袖反映，这些学生的专业技能还不够强。因此，各高校都在寻找加强这些技能的新方法。由于课程已经很拥挤，在现有课程的基础上增加额外的课程内容或创建新的课程来教授这些内容通常是不可行的。在课程之外，技术领域的本科生学习专业技能的一个机会是通过外展活动。在这些活动中，本科生接触到小学、初中和高中的年轻学生，并交流各自领域发生的事情。例如，推广活动可以包括为中学生举办机器人夏令营，或者参观一所高中进行电气工程演示。本科生不仅接受这些外展活动的培训，而且有机会多次练习所学的东西。最近，一个名为工程大使网络的推广项目发现，他们的一个特殊的训练和练习序列导致参与的本科生显著提高了他们的演讲技能。因为美国各地都有很多外展项目，所以问题就来了：其他外展项目是否有训练和实践环节，可以引导本科生极大地提高其他专业技能？该项目旨在确定美国哪些外展项目能为参与项目的工程类本科生提供最具变革性的职业发展。为了实现这一目标，我们确定了四项任务：(I)对现有的涉及工程学本科生的外展计划进行系统审查；(Ii)与外展顾问召开研讨会，以建立一个网络和常见做法的主题链；(Iii)综合研讨会获得的数据，以确定专业发展的变革性做法；以及(Iv)召开两次全国培训研讨会，向进行外展的工程学本科生传播这些做法。一个由若干利益攸关方组成的咨询委员会为该项目提供指导。为了传播该项目的成果，我们正在使用一些场所和一系列的沟通方法。特别是，我们的目标是许多项目，这些项目进行有组织的推广，由工程学本科生进行。具体而言，正在通过上述两个国家讲习班、学术论文、面向广大受众的在线报告以及关于专业发展的变革性做法的在线教程进行传播。

Undergraduates in science, technology, engineering, and math not only need to enter the workforce with strong technical skills, but also with strong professional skills such as writing, presenting, and working in teams. Unfortunately, many leaders in industry report that the professional skills of these students are not strong enough. Therefore, colleges and universities are looking for new ways to strengthen these skills. Adding additional course content to existing courses or creating new courses to teach this content is often not feasible due to already crowded curricula. Outside of courses, one opportunity for undergraduates in technical fields to learn professional skills is through outreach activities. In these activities, undergraduates reach out to younger students in elementary, middle, and high schools and communicate what occurs in their respective fields. For example, outreach could include hosting a summer camp for middle school students on robotics or visiting a high school to give an electrical engineering demonstration. Not only do undergraduates receive training for these outreach activities, but they have the opportunity to practice what was learned multiple times. Recently, one outreach program, the Engineering Ambassadors Network, discovered that one of their particular training-and-practice sequences led the participating undergraduates to dramatically improve their presentation skills. Because scores of outreach programs exist around the country, the question arises: Do other outreach programs have training-and-practice sequences that lead undergraduates to greatly improve other professional skills?This project seeks to determine which outreach programs in the United States provide the most transformative professional development of the participating undergraduates from engineering. To accomplish this goal, we have identified four tasks: (i) perform a systematic review of existing outreach programs involving engineering undergraduates; (ii) convene a workshop with outreach advisors to establish a network and thematic strands of common practices; (iii) synthesize the data obtained from the workshops to identify transformative practices of professional development; and (iv) convene two national training workshops to disseminate the practices to engineering undergraduates who perform outreach. An advisory board, composed of a number of stakeholders, provides guidance for this project. To disseminate the project's results, we are using a number of venues and a range of communication methods. In particular, we are targeting the many programs that conduct organized outreach performed by engineering undergraduates. Specifically, dissemination is occurring through the two national workshops mentioned above, academic papers, an online report targeting a wide audience, and online tutorials for the transformative practices of professional development.