Defining and Building the Engineering Workforce of the Future

为了帮助高等教育课程调整他们的做法，以更好地准备在未来劳动力中茁壮成长的工程专业人员，美国工程教育协会（ASEE）将举办一个由两部分组成的研讨会系列，以确定未来准备好的工程劳动力所需的关键能力，以及教育行动计划的要素，这将使这种劳动力。该提案建立在美国国家科学基金会（NSF）的战略目标基础上，即促进更有能力和多样化的研究人员队伍的发展，提高国家的科学和创新技能，以及人工智能（AI），量子科学，先进通信网络/5G，先进制造和生物技术等未来行业的预计影响。该项目将进行一个远景规划练习，以识别和分解具有足够特异性的关键能力，以便以直接的方式传达工程教育计划中有意义的变革行动。这一多利益攸关方行动议程将有助于培养大量具备在未来工作场所取得成功所需的工程技能的个人，并提高国家工程劳动力的能力。这将有助于确定建立一个可持续的未来就绪工程生态系统（FREE）的启动阶段，该生态系统由教育，政策和私营部门合作组成，这对于保持美国的技术领先地位是必要的。 Future Ready Engineer Ecosystem（FREE）两部分研讨会系列的目标有两个方面：第一个研讨会将侧重于愿景和定义，第二个研讨会将侧重于运营。具体而言，第一次研讨会将侧重于分解面向未来的工程人员的关键能力，并将确定关键能力的优先分类，并提供基本细节和背景摘要，以提供有意义的具体性。这个面向未来的工程生态系统能力分类（FREE-CoT）将成为第二次研讨会的理想学生成果。第二次研讨会将以第一次研讨会的成果为基础，确定教育工作者、政策制定者和行业需要采取哪些具体行动，以共同培养一批具有在未来几年取得成功所需能力的新兴工程师。工程教育计划的必要变化的框架将被确定为沿着实现这些变化所需的行动。该框架还将包括必须在各部门建立的基本合作进程，以实现持续共同发展所需的沟通和反馈。将起草一个规则，定义每个关键能力的成功门槛。这个面向未来的工程生态系统框架和行动指南（FREE-FRA）将为国家行动呼吁提供一个易于沟通的愿景。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

To assist higher education programs in adapting their practices to better prepare engineering professionals who thrive in the future workforce, the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) will conduct a two-part workshop series to identify the key competencies required for a future-ready engineering workforce, and the elements of an education action plan that would equip such workforce. This proposal builds on the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) strategic goal of fostering the growth of a more capable and diverse research workforce, advancing the scientific and innovation skills of the nation, as well as the projected impact of the industries of the future such as artificial intelligence (AI), quantum science, advanced communication networks/5G, advanced manufacturing and biotechnology. This project will conduct a visioning exercise to identify and disaggregate key competencies with enough specificity so that meaningful change actions in engineering educational programs can be conveyed in a straightforward manner. This multi-stakeholder agenda for action will help develop large numbers of individuals with the engineering skills needed for success in the workplace of the future and increase the capacities of the nation’s engineering workforce. This will help define the startup phase of establishing a sustainable Future-Ready Engineering Ecosystem (FREE) composed of education, policy, and private sector collaborations, that will be necessary to maintain U.S. technological leadership. The objectives of the Future Ready Engineer Ecosystem (FREE) two-part workshop series are two-fold: The first workshop will focus on visioning and definition and the second workshop will focus on operationalization. Specifically, the first workshop will focus on disaggregating key competencies for the future-ready engineering workforce and will identify a prioritized taxonomy of the key competencies with the essential details and context summaries to provide meaningful specificity. This Future-Ready Engineering Ecosystem Competency Taxonomy (FREE-CoT) would then become the desired student outcomes for the second workshop. The second workshop will build upon the outcomes of the first workshop to define what are the specific actions that educators, policymakers, and industry need to take to co-develop a critical mass of emerging engineers with the competencies needed to succeed in the coming years. A framework for the necessary changes in engineering educational programs will be identified along with the required actions to achieve these changes. The framework will also include the essential collaborative processes that must be established across the sectors to achieve the communication and feedback required for ongoing co-development. A rubric will be drafted that defines a threshold of what success looks like for each key competency. This Future-Ready Engineering Ecosystem Framework and Rubric for Action (FREE-FRA) would then provide an easy to communicate vision for a national call to action.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.