Transforming Undergraduate Learning to Enhance Innovation for a Changing World

该项目旨在通过开发一种新的模式来设计和提供以创新为重点的本科STEM教育，以服务于国家利益。如今的本科教育通常被分成多个不同的学院和系。因此，学生发展重要技能的机会往往有限，例如在多学科团队中创新，在解决问题时考虑人的因素，以及将想法转化为可靠的时间和资源投资。为了让这样的机会更容易获得，这个1级机构和社区转型项目旨在为专注于创新的本科生学习建立一个跨学科、可扩展的模式，跨越学术单位和学生专业。这种模式将包括一个以学生为中心的、跨学院/系的实践社区，以设计和共同教授以创新为重点的本科课程。该项目的一个主要特点是学术单位之间的合作，以开发包括工程/技术/设计问题、人文科学/社会科学的人文科学和文化接口以及商业管理的经济观点的课程。在这种背景下，学生的学习将以跨越课程和课程级别的方式集中在实际问题上。该项目将同时研究本科教育这一变化的体制障碍。总体而言，该项目可能会产生洞察力，并为寻求参与大规模教育转型的其他机构提供下一步建议。该项目旨在利用普渡大学理工学院、文学院和克兰纳特管理学院的优势，创造领先的、专注于创新的本科学习体验。首先，该项目将实施一种基于设计的研究方法，以创建、测试和改进一种教育模式，将传统的孤立的本科生学习经验转变为跨越学科和学术部门/个别课程的经验。这一模式预计将为通过实施循证做法实现变革性的本科生学习提供体制结构。协同作用是，实践社区，包括教师、管理人员和社区合作伙伴，旨在提供一个环境，将滋养学生的学习和支持他们的创新想法。该项目将使用人种学方法来审查大学变革进程，确定指导机构变革的最佳做法，制定跨单位共同教授课程的方法，并审查如何接触到更多的受众并随着时间的推移维持学习。该项目的核心假设是，跨学院的转型方法专注于跨校园扩展创新实践，将更好地为下一代STEM创新者做好准备。该项目还寻求解决当前对高等教育快速而深刻变革的需求，这使体制转型的条件更加有利。通过该项目收集的数据将有助于更好地了解不同学术单位共同开发新的本科教育模式的推动因素和障碍。NSF IUSE：EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生的STEM教育的有效性。通过机构和社区转型轨道，该计划支持高等教育机构和学科社区转变和改进STEM教育的努力。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 aims to serve the national interest by developing a new model for designing and delivering innovation-focused undergraduate STEM education. Undergraduate education today is typically fractured into multiple different colleges and departments. As a result, students often have limited opportunities to develop important skills, such as innovating in multidisciplinary teams, considering human elements in problem-solving, and transforming ideas into reliable investments of time and resources. To make such opportunities more available, this Level 1 Institutional and Community Transformation project aims to build a transdisciplinary, scalable model for innovation-focused undergraduate learning that crosses academic units and student majors. This model will include a student-centered, cross college/department community of practice to design and co-teach innovation-focused undergraduate courses. A key feature of the project is collaboration among academic units to develop courses that include engineering/technology/design issues, the human and cultural interface of liberal arts/social sciences, and the economic perspectives of business management. This context is expected to focus student learning on real problems in ways that span courses and course levels. The project will simultaneously study institutional barriers to this change in undergraduate education. Taken as a whole, the project may yield insights and suggest next steps for other institutions that seek to engage in large-scale educational transformations. This project is designed to leverage strengths of Purdue University’s Polytechnic Institute, College of Liberal Arts, and Krannert School of Management to create leading-edge, innovation-focused undergraduate learning experiences. First, the project will implement a design-based research approach to create, test, and refine an educational model for transforming traditional siloed undergraduate learning experiences into experiences that span across disciplines and academic departments/individual courses. This model is expected to provide the institutional structure for achieving transformative undergraduate learning through the implementation of evidence-based practices. Synergistically, the community of practice, which includes faculty, administrators, and community partners, is intended to provide an environment that will nourish student learning and support their innovative ideas. The project will use ethnographic methods to examine university change processes, identify best practices to guide institutional transformation, develop methods for co-teaching courses across units, and examine ways to reach larger audiences and sustain learning over time. The project centers on the hypothesis that a cross-college approach to transformation that focuses on expanding the practice of innovation across campus boundaries will better prepare next generation STEM innovators. The project also seeks to address the current need for rapid and profound changes in higher education, which makes conditions more favorable for institutional transformation. The data collected through this project will help provide a better understanding of the enablers and obstacles for different academic units to jointly develop new undergraduate educational models. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.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.