IUSE/PFE:RED A&I: Adapting and Implementing Interactive Problem-Driven Learning, Professional and Computational Skills Development for Early and Vertically-Integrated Engagement

该项目将制定、实施、评估和传播一种方法，以便让学生尽早并持续地参与土木工程和环境工程(CEE)课程。它将围绕基于学生需求以及机构和部门的优先事项和目标的多种策略，建立项目团队的专业工程师形成(PFE)方法。这种方法将增强学生对中东欧专业、系和专业的归属感，从而增加学生在中东欧系的经验、表现和留存度。世界需要更多的土木工程师和环境工程师来应对21世纪的重大社会挑战，包括气候变化、日益频繁和强烈的灾害、水质退化和稀缺、基础设施更新、城市拥堵和流行病。该项目将为所有中东欧学生，特别是女性和代表性不足的少数族裔创造安全的环境，并提高他们在学术课程和职业中的归属感。此外，它还将培养更多具有增强能力的中东欧专业人员，以应对社会的重大挑战。该项目支持RED项目的总体目标，包括加强学生的专业形成和转变系文化。全国各地的CEE项目都在为留住学生而苦苦挣扎，这至少源于两个主要问题。首先，中东欧学生直到课程较晚时才开始参加专业课程，以便完成一般工程和非工程课程，如数学和科学预科课程。这种延迟的参与度可能会导致学生对该项目没有归属感，对职业缺乏了解，在构建自己的职业认同方面进展甚微--在该项目的头两年。其次，随着不断的技术变革，CEE项目有机会继续现代化，以留住积极寻求计算发展的学生。这笔红色赠款的目标是开发一种有效和可扩展的模式，通过早期和垂直整合的参与来改革CEE教育。这个项目将创建一个由四个相互告知和高度互动的课程组成的主干，垂直整合问题发现和解决问题。这些课程将解决社会的重大挑战，并发展计算、团队和反思技能。该项目将导致土木工程师和环境工程师的留任和毕业，他们在技术、专业和社会技术上都有更好的装备，以应对社会的重大挑战。我们将同时实施教师发展倡议，以培养更多反思和包容的教授，以及工作量模式和教学时间表，以激励教师参与大型和互动的一年级和二年级课程。此外，我们将设立全人教育(WPE)奖，并与上层管理部门合作，为教师年度评估以及重新任命、晋升和终身教职过程制定WPE指标。为了实现这些目标，该项目将与佐治亚理工学院的生物医学工程红色团队合作，应用施马德和塞迪基德的安全模式来提高归属感。该项目还连接到克莱姆森大学的土木工程红色团队，以学习他们在整个课程中建立技术和专业技能的ARCH框架。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will develop, implement, evaluate, and disseminate an approach to engage students early and on a continuing basis in Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) programs. It will build the project team's professional formation of engineers (PFE) approach around multiple strategies based upon student needs - as well as institutional and departmental priorities and goals. This approach will enhance students’ sense of belonging to the CEE profession, department, and major - augmenting student experiences, performance, and retention in CEE departments. The world needs more civil and environmental engineers to address 21st Century societal grand challenges including climate change, the increasing frequency and intensity of disasters, water quality degradation and scarcity, infrastructure renewal, urban congestion, and pandemics. This project will create safe environments for all CEE students, particularly women and underrepresented minorities, and improve their sense of belonging within the academic program and the profession. Moreover, it will graduate more CEE professionals with augmented capabilities to address society’s grand challenges. This project supports the overall goals of the RED program, including enhancing the professional formation of students and transforming the culture of the department.CEE programs across the nation struggle with retention of students, which stems from at least two major issues. First, CEE students do not begin to take courses in their major program until later in the curriculum to allow them to complete general engineering and non-engineering courses, such as math and science preparatory courses. This delayed engagement can lead to students feeling little sense of belonging in the program, having little understanding of the profession, and making little progress in constructing their professional identities - in the first two years of the program. Second, there are opportunities for CEE programs to continue modernizing, with ongoing technological change, to retain students who actively seek computational development. The objective of this RED grant is to develop an effective and scalable model to revolutionize CEE education through early and vertically integrated engagement. This project will create a spine of four mutually informing and highly interactive courses with vertically-integrated problem finding and problem solving. The courses will address society’s grand challenges and develop computational, teaming, and reflection skills. This project will lead to retention and graduation of civil and environmental engineers who are better equipped – technically, professionally, and socio-technically - to address society’s grand challenges. We will simultaneously implement faculty development initiatives to create more reflective and inclusive professors, and a workload model and teaching schedule to incentivize faculty engagement in large and interactive freshmen and sophomore courses. Further, we will create a Whole Person Education (WPE) award, and work with upper administration to develop a WPE metric for the faculty annual evaluation, as well as reappointment, promotion, and tenure processes. To accomplish these goals, this project will partner with Georgia Tech’s Biomedical Engineering RED Team to apply Schmader and Sedikides’ SAFE Model to improve the sense of belonging. This project also connects to Clemson University’s Civil Engineering RED Team to learn from their Arch framework for building technical and professional skills throughout the curriculum.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.