Collaborative Research: Improving Students’ Computational Thinking Skills in Construction Engineering and Management

该项目旨在通过创建一种工具，帮助学生在建筑工程和管理课程中学习计算思维技能，从而服务于国家利益。该项目侧重于积极的学习体验，让学生学习如何从大数据集中提取有意义的信息，并使用结果做出明智的工程决策。这些经验可以帮助学生更好地为满足建筑行业的需求做好准备，例如提高生产率、减少浪费和改善工人安全。在建筑工地上使用传感器是一种日益增长的趋势，因为它们提供了显示工地上正在发生的事情的实时数据。学生需要培养数据分析和计算思维的技能，以便他们能够处理传感器数据，执行数据分析，并发展对建筑工地操作的理解。为了实现这些目标，项目团队将开发一个Web应用程序，为学生提供选择、分析和显示传感器数据的图形界面。学生将能够实时探索建筑工地，以了解工地上物体之间的行为和关系，以及它们与建筑项目安全和生产率的关系。网络应用软件将通过公共软件储存库向工程教育界提供。通过解决建筑行业的计算技能差距，该项目将使建筑工人受益，并提高建筑公司的经济竞争力。该项目的目标是通过让学生在建筑工地上参与现实世界的问题来提高学生的计算思维能力。它将通过开发一个网络应用程序来实现这一点，该应用程序为学生提供交互的可编程对象，以在建筑工程的背景下执行计算功能。该应用程序将帮助学生分析传感器数据，并提高他们对解决工程问题的重要计算概念的理解。学生将学习从建筑工地收集的传感器数据，数据分析的计算方法，以及理解用于支持决策的低水平传感器数据。该应用程序将为网络浏览器开发，并将包括一个包含自定义对象(例如，车辆、工人)的Python包和一个计算函数库。将进行一项混合方法的研究，以回答研究问题，这些问题涉及(1)建筑业所需的数据分析能力，(2)帮助学生发展能力所需的网络应用程序元素，以及(3)网络应用程序对学生计算思维的影响。将在全国范围内对建筑工程和管理专业人员进行调查，以确定使用建筑工地传感系统所需的技能，并确定这些技能在建筑业的价值和需求。该项目将通过一个涉及建筑项目的现有外展活动，向高中生介绍建筑业的计算思维。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。通过参与的学生学习路径，该计划支持有前景的实践和工具的创建、探索和实施。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 creating a tool to help students learn computational thinking skills in construction engineering and management courses. The project focuses on active learning experiences in which students learn how to extract meaningful information from large datasets and use the results to make informed engineering decisions. These experiences can help better prepare students to address construction industry needs, such as increasing productivity, reducing waste, and improving worker safety. The use of sensors on construction sites is a growing trend because they provide real-time data showing what is happening on a site. Students need to develop skills in data analytics and computational thinking so that they can process sensor data, perform data analyses, and develop an understanding of construction site operations. To accomplish these aims, the project team will develop a web application that provides students with a graphical interface to select, analyze, and display sensor data. Students will be able to explore a construction site in real-time to understand behaviors and relationships between objects on a site and how they relate to construction project safety and productivity. The web application software will be made available to the engineering education community through public software repositories. By addressing the computational skills gap in the construction industry, this project will benefit construction workers and the economic competitiveness of construction companies.The goal of this project is to improve students’ computational thinking skills by engaging students in real world problems on construction sites. It will do so by developing a web application that provides interactive programmable objects for students to perform computational functions in the context of construction engineering. The application will help students analyze sensor data and improve their understanding of important computational concepts for engineering problem solving. Students will learn about sensor data collected from construction sites, computational approaches for data analyses, and making sense of low-level sensor data to support decision making. The application will be developed for web browsers and will include a Python package that contains custom objects (e.g., vehicles, workers) and a library of computational functions. A mixed-method research study will be conducted to answer research questions that address (1) competencies in data analytics that are needed in the construction industry, (2) the elements of the web application that are needed to help students develop the competencies, and (3) the impact of the web application on students’ computational thinking. A nationwide survey of construction engineering and management professionals will be conducted to identify skills that are needed for working with construction site sensing systems and to determine the value of and demand for these skills in the construction industry. The project will introduce high school students to computational thinking in the construction industry through an existing outreach activity that involves a construction project. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.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.