| NSF Org: |
EEC Division of Engineering Education and Centers |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 26, 2010 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 26, 2010 |
| Award Number: | 1037652 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Donna Riley
EEC Division of Engineering Education and Centers ENG Directorate for Engineering |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2010 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2013 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $105,064.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $105,064.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1 GRAND AVE BLDG 15 SAN LUIS OBISPO CA US 93407-9000 (805)756-2982 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
1 GRAND AVE BLDG 15 SAN LUIS OBISPO CA US 93407-9000 |
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Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | EngEd-Engineering Education |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.041 |
ABSTRACT
This engineering education research project seeks to understand the barriers to inter-institutional diffusion of educational institutions by examining transfer a successful engineering course which contextualizes engineering in a historical and societal context from Olin College of Engineering to California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo. Challenges to transfer will be explored using models from existing educational, organizational, and social change literature. The two goals of this project are to develop a method for characterizing the challenges that engineering educators face in disseminating curricular advances, and measuring whether the advances to student learning seen at one institution transfer to the partner school.
The broader significance and importance of this project is to explore why years of repeated demonstrations of successful courses, pedagogies, and educational models have not spread broadly across the education system. The course to be transferred links engineering content to the social and historical contexts which define and frame engineering problems, a model which potentially can help recruiting and retaining women in engineering. Beyond addressing the barriers to transfer, the course content addresses the emerging vision of revising engineering education to better address complex global problems called for by recent national panels.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
OVERVIEW
In this project, a collaborative research team including engineering, history, and education faculty sought to better understand how to successfully transfer innovative STEM curricular approaches across different institutions. Specifically, we adapted an existing and highly successful interdisciplinary project-based from Olin, a small private college, to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, a large public university. Using the existing Stuff of History course at Olin as a basis, we (1) identified key features, design strategies, implementation challenges, and student learning outcomes associated with integrated project-based courses; (2) created a set of flexible curriculum design tools that instructors may use to develop new course ideas; (3) designed and implemented a new integrated course at Cal Poly, and revised two project-based courses at Olin; and (4) disseminated our research findings on student learning, as well as our curriculum design strategies and tools, through publications as well as local, national, and international faculty workshops.
INTELLECTUAL MERIT
The research team successfully designed and implemented an entirely new integrated project-based course on embedded systems and social movements. Based on the existing Stuff of History course at Olin College, the PIs designed a high-level framework to provide scaffolding for the design of the new Cal Poly integrated course. The high-level framework focused on several elements of course design, such as (1) identification of broad, competency-based learning goals for the integrated course block, (2) development of learning activities that support broad goals such as communication, contextual awareness, and self-directed learning, and (3) selection of assessment methods aligned with broad competency goals and supportive of cross-disciplinary collaboration. The new Cal Poly course was deployed in spring 2012.
As part of this project, the team also significantly revised two existing project-based courses at Olin, including the project-based introductory materials science course and the integrated history-materials science Stuff of History course. In all each of the new and revised courses, students actively engage with questions of technological and broader societal significance, such as the environmental impacts and ethical implications of low-cost consumer products (Figure 1).
To gauge the effectiveness of the new and revised project-based courses, the research team collected data on student motivations, self-directed learning strategies, learning climate, and moral development in several of the course settings. The PIs demonstrated that integrating humanities with technical topics through project-based courses effectively supports increased student motivation (Figure 2) and engagement in self-regulated learning strategies. Findings also ...
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