IUSE/PFE:RED Innovation Beyond Accommodation: Leveraging Neurodiversity for Engineering Innovation

工程学的根本性进步往往来自于非标准的思维方式。即便如此，几十年来，人们一直在努力增加女性和代表性不足的少数群体在工程领域的代表性，但在很大程度上忽视了人类的认知多样性，这是一种必须利用的资源，以应对我们世界面临的日益复杂的挑战。一刀切的教学模式不仅限制了传统学习者参与互动学习和创造性解决问题的机会，而且还明显地使思维方式超出典型范围的学生失败。为此，该提案的重点是超越传统工程教育的局限性，创建一个具有根本包容性的土木与环境工程系，推进个性化学习，增加neurodivergent学生的招聘和保留，提高所有学生的学习成果，并利用neurodivergent个人的潜力为工程突破做出贡献。这将通过有目的地吸引学生，教师和工作人员在创建INCLUDE，一个基于优势的工程教育社区，通过确定学生和教师的优势，并创建一个多维的环境，为学生提供选择学习方法，评估工具和互动模式方面的过程来实现与他们的教师，顾问和同行。与INCLUDE计划的参与将跨越高等教育的各个阶段，从大学预科课程和招聘工作开始，持续到大学的所有四年，并支持学生准备进入劳动力市场。土木与环境工程系的这种彻底转变，将增加对如何在工程教育的风险规避分支中进行和维持文化变革的理解。INCLUDE是一个围绕共享理论，代码和工具的动态认知社区，它的创建将支持知识的进步和包容性工程教育最佳实践的共享，无论是在机构层面还是在机构层面。目前，很少有人知道neurodivergent学生在工程项目的看法和经验。这项研究将有助于了解神经多样性如何塑造工程专业学生的经验，他们对工程项目的坚持，以及他们作为专业工程师的认同感。教育活动，围绕教学的通用设计的原则，在基于优势的模型的背景下，将增加知识的最佳实践的包容性教学;其实施可能会显着改变神经发散工程学生的教育经验。此外，通过检查工程教师对神经多样性的态度，这个项目将增加了解这些态度如何影响学生的学习差异的结果。最后，这项研究将促进对神经发散性学生的优势的了解，以及不同的思维方式可能有助于工程创新的方式。该奖项由教育和人力资源局和工程局联合资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查进行评估，被认为值得支持的搜索.

Radical advances in engineering often emerge through nonstandard ways of thinking. Even so, decades of efforts to increase the representation of women and underrepresented minorities in engineering fields have largely overlooked the cognitive diversity of the human race as a resource that must be leveraged to address the increasingly complex challenges facing our world. The one-size-fits-all model of teaching and learning not only limits opportunities for traditional learners to engage in interactive learning and creative problem solving, but it also notably fails students whose ways of thinking fall outside of the typical range. To this end, the focus of this proposal is to move beyond the limitations of traditional engineering education by creating a radically inclusive Civil and Environmental Engineering Department that advances personalized learning, increases recruitment and retention of neurodivergent students, improves learning outcomes for all students, and leverages the potential of neurodivergent individuals to contribute to engineering breakthroughs. This will be accomplished by purposefully engaging students, faculty and staff in the creation of INCLUDE, a strengths-based engineering education community, through a process of identifying student and faculty strengths and creating a multi-dimensional environment that offers students choice in terms of learning methods, assessment tools and interaction modes with their instructors, advisors and peers. Engagement with the INCLUDE program will span all stages of higher education, beginning with pre-college programs and recruitment efforts, continuing through all four years of college, and supporting students as they prepare to enter the workforce.This radical transformation of a Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, will increase understanding of what it takes to make and sustain cultural change in a risk-averse branch of engineering education. The creation of INCLUDE, a dynamic epistemic community centered around shared theories, code, and tools will support the advancement of knowledge and sharing of best practices for inclusive engineering education, both at and beyond the institutional level. Currently, very little is known about the perceptions and experiences of neurodivergent students in engineering programs. This research will contribute to the understanding of how neurodiversity shapes the experience of engineering students, their persistence in engineering programs, and their sense of identity as professional engineers. The educational activities, centered around the principles of Universal Design for Instruction in the context of a strengths-based model, will increase knowledge of best practices for inclusive teaching; the implementation of which may dramatically transform the educational experience for neurodivergent engineering students. Additionally, by examining engineering faculty attitudes toward neurodiversity, this project will increase understanding of how these attitudes affect outcomes for students with learning differences. Finally, this study will advance knowledge about the strengths of neurodivergent students and the ways in which diverse ways of thinking may contribute to engineering innovations.This award is jointly funded by the Directorate of Education and Human Resources and the Directoratefor Engineering.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.