The Lean Canvas for Invention: A Team-Based Framework for Research Development, Mentoring, and Career Readiness

发展科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）劳动力对我们国家在全球创新和竞争中的竞争能力至关重要。然而，STEM的研究生培训课程并没有为学生做好准备，以应对工作性质和可用性的变化，劳动力人口结构的变化，竞争加剧，宏观道德以及技术和研究方法的不懈和惊人创新。 美国国家科学、工程和医学院（NASEM）建议STEM研究生教育应满足劳动力需求，将理论与实践联系起来，利用基于项目的学习，指导对不同职业道路的探索，并发展核心能力以及可转移的专业技能。美国国家科学基金会研究生教育创新奖（IGE）授予犹他州大学，将通过研究一种大胆的、新的、变革性的、以团队为基础的方法对研究生研究开发和工程创业的影响和可行性来回应这些建议，这种方法优化了研究团队成员之间指导互动和关系的质量和一致性，并培养研究生的专业能力和劳动力准备。 该项目不仅帮助研究生发展技能和知识，在他们的学科取得成功，而且还提高了同行和教师指导关系的质量和有效性，以创造一个更具包容性，支持性和生产力的研究环境。 研究结果将为教育界提供培训下一代STEM科学家的最佳实践。 精益画布的发明（LCI）是一个基于网络的课程，最近开发，最初以前试点。它将帮助研究团队思考研究问题，并计划和实施团队和个人的研究项目。 该项目将扩大基本的LCI，包括正式的辅导和职业发展。 第一个研究目标是应用扩展的LCI与七个研究团队，并检查学生成绩的差异（例如，研究建议的质量，批判性思维能力，研究自我效能等）参与LCI的人和非LCI同龄人的代表性样本之间的差异。 第二个研究目标是通过学生，教师和相关行业利益相关者之间的定期和结构化的互动提供辅导培训和资源。 定量调查和定性焦点小组与LCI参与者将评估感知质量，特点和满意度与他们的指导关系，以及指导如何影响研究生的坚持态度。 与LCI和非LCI同行的干预前和干预后调查将检查学生和教师在研究团队，学术部门和更大的工程领域的归属感。 第三个研究目标是通过帮助学生创建个性化的职业发展计划，包括职业抱负，目标和行动步骤，将在特定的时间点进行审查，以促进专业能力和劳动力准备的发展。 将提供职业探索资源，以及与工程相关行业专业人士的结构化网络机会。 对LCI和非LCI同行进行干预前和干预后调查，将检查STEM核心能力发展的差异以及学位和劳动力准备指标的进展。研究生教育创新（IGE）计划专注于研究生教育研究。IGE的目标是试验、测试和验证研究生教育的创新方法，并产生将这些方法推广到更广泛的社区所需的知识。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得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来支持。

Developing a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workforce is critical to our nation's ability to compete with innovation and competition globally. However, graduate training programs in STEM are not preparing students for changes in the nature and availability of work, shifts in workforce demographics, rising competition, macro ethics, and unremitting and striking innovations in technologies and research methods. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) recommends that STEM graduate education respond to workforce needs, connect theory to practice, utilize project-based learning, guide the exploration of diverse career paths, and develop core competencies as well as transferable professional skills. The National Science Foundation Innovations of Graduate Education (IGE) award to the University of Utah will respond to these recommendations by examining the impact and feasibility of a bold, new, transformative, team-based approach to graduate research development and entrepreneurship in engineering that optimizes the quality and consistency of mentoring interactions and relationships among members of the research team, and fosters graduate students’ professional competencies and workforce readiness. This project not only helps graduate students develop the skills and knowledge to be successful in their discipline, but also enhances the quality and effectiveness of peer and faculty mentoring relationships to create a more inclusive, supportive, and productive research environment. Results will inform the education community on best practices for training the next generation of STEM scientists. The Lean Canvas for Invention (LCI) is a web-based course that was recently developed and initially previously piloted. It will help research teams think through a research problem and plan and implement both team and individual research projects. This project will expand the basic LCI by including formalized mentoring and career development. The first research objective is to apply the expanded LCI with seven research teams and examine differences in student outcomes (e.g., quality of research proposals, critical thinking skills, research self-efficacy, etc.) between those who participated in the LCI and a representative sample of non-LCI peers. The second research objective is to provide mentoring training and resources through interactions among students, faculty, and relevant industry stakeholders on a regular and structured basis. Quantitative surveys and qualitative focus groups with LCI participants will evaluate the perceived quality, characteristics of, and satisfaction with their mentoring relationships and how mentoring influenced graduate students’ persistence attitudes. Pre- and post-intervention surveys with LCI and non-LCI peers will examine students’ and faculty’s sense of belonging within the research team, the academic department, and the larger field of engineering. The third research objective is to foster the development of professional competencies and workforce readiness by helping students create an individualized career development plan including career aspirations, goals, and action steps that will be reviewed at specific time points. Career exploration resources, as well as structured networking opportunities with professionals in the engineering-related industry, will be provided. Pre- and post-intervention surveys with LCI and non-LCI peers will examine differences in the development of STEM core competencies as well as progress towards degree and workforce readiness indicators.The Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program is focused on research in graduate education. The goals of IGE are to pilot, test and validate innovative approaches to graduate education and to generate the knowledge required to move these approaches into the broader community.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.