Below are descriptions of several projects that are affiliated with NCEER. Note that NCEER co-directors and scholars are available to consult on engineering education research projects and education components of proposal applications.
Ongoing Projects
Exploring the Role of Computational Adaptive Expertise in Design and Innovation ("CADEX")
Sponsor: The National Science Foundation
Investigators: Ann McKenna, Matthew Glucksberg, Robert Linsenmeier, Uri Wilensky
This project seeks to advance both basic and applied understanding of how to prepare engineering graduates to effectively and efficiently contribute to America's leadership in technological innovation. Society's most pressing technological needs such as national security, public health, and environmental sustainability, to name a few, require substantial subject matter knowledge to develop realistic solutions to meet these needs. Specifically, engineering solutions to modern technological needs require, at their core, foundational analytic skills and facility with modern computational tools and methods. As educators/researchers we are compelled to better understand how learners can effectively bring this complex knowledge to bear in the process of innovation. Therefore this project is exploring the role that computational and analytical abilities play in innovation in the context of a conceptual framework that has recently emerged in the engineering education literature: adaptive expertise.
Prototyping the Engineer of 2020: A 360-degree Study of Effective Education
Sponsor: The National Science Foundation
Investigators: Ann McKenna and Lois Trautvetter (NU), Lisa Lattuca and Patrick Terenzini (PennState), Rose Marra (University of Missouri), Betsy Palmer (Montana State University)
This study is a multi-institutional collaboration that includes Penn State University as the lead institution, Northwestern University, University of Montana, and the University of Missouri. In this study we will identify and analyze the curricular, pedagogical, cultural, and organizational features of engineering programs that support high-quality and innovative engineering education that is well aligned with the goals of the Engineer of 2020. Specifically, the study concentrates on the following three attributes of the engineer of 2020: design and problem solving skills, interdisciplinary competence, and contextual competence. The aim is to not only understand what works, but also discover why and how it works. Significant attention will be given to the factors that affect engineering students who are women and members of historically underrepresented groups.
Collaborative Research – NSF Workshop Series: Interdisciplinary Design
as an Instructional Discipline
Sponsor: The National Science Foundation
Partner Institutions:
Design
is an integrative activity that spans many disciplines; however, our educational
system often struggles to provide interdisciplinary design experiences for our
undergraduate and graduate students and to recognize the significance of design
research. Recently, new and innovative interdisciplinary graduate programs in
design have arisen with strong ties to engineering yet structured to fully
embrace and complement research from other disciplines. These graduate programs
have the potential to influence the development of a new discipline of design
that includes both education and research. Interdisciplinary education is a
central factor in expanding and sustaining an American competitive advantage in
today’s global economy. This project is
conducting a series of workshops on Interdisciplinary Design as an
Instructional Discipline to be held over a 12 month period. Workshops will be
held at the
Integrative
Modeling/Simulation and Experimental Validation of Therapeutic Nanodiamond
Materials
Sponsor: The National Science Foundation
Investigators:
Dean Ho, Wing Liu, Ann McKenna, and George Schatz
Nanodiamonds possess several properties
that enable their versatile application towards drug delivery. For example,
they can carry and release proteins, small molecules, genetic material, etc.
They can also be applied as particle-based vehicles for pervasive delivery, or
integrated within devices for localized treatment. To optimize the therapeutic
potential of the nanodiamonds, a broader understanding of their
chemical/mechanical properties will be addressed by this research program. This
information will uncover the fundamental science underlying nanodiamond
particle structure, chemical composition/distribution on nanodiamond surfaces,
and drug attachment/detachment mechanisms, etc. This program will merge
nanodiamond and engineering education research to train the next generation of
scientific/engineering leaders. The
educational/outreach plan will integrate educational module design, faculty
guest lectures, and custom designed experimental kits to impact a diverse
student population and increase nanotechnology interest. These modules will
also be co-designed with partner teachers. Module topics will include an
introduction to nanocarbon materials/devices, nanobiology, etc. Images derived
from the modeling/simulation project objectives will be used to accomplish the
challenge of visually illustrating nanotechnology concepts. Module/experimental
kit implementation will be coordinated by postdoctoral researchers and graduate
students, and feedback/analysis of the outreach program efficacy will be
conducted in collaboration with the
Completed Projects
Annals of Research on Engineering Education (AREE)
Sponsor: The National Science Foundation, Sub-award from the National Academy of Sciences
Investigators:
Ann McKenna (NU), Norman Fortenberry and Beth Cady (National Academy of
Engineering), Wendy Knapp (University of Minnesota), Karl Smith (Purdue)
The Annals of Research on Engineering Education (AREE) is an experiment in collaborative scholarship linking education researchers across disciplinary boundaries in order to provide access to the latest education research and offer guidance on education research methodology. AREE is a collaborative venture of the Center for the Advancement of Scholarship on Engineering Education and leading journals of education research in engineering and science fields. NCEER co-director, Ann McKenna serves as the Managing Editor of AREE and is investigating how the site can be used to create a collaborative on-line community of engineering education researchers.
Promoting Innovative Design: An Investigation of Adaptive Expertise
Sponsor: Center for the Advancement of Scholarship on Engineering Education (CASEE)
Investigators: Mica Hutchison and Ann McKenna
In an effort to understand how educators might create the most effective opportunities for introducing students to innovative thinking, this study investigates students' use of innovation in their development of design solutions. Researchers hypothesize that problem-solving environments influence the degree to which learners exhibit innovative problem-solving approaches. Guided by Schwartz, Bransford, and Sears' adaptive expertise framework – a construct describing performance on two axes representing efficiency and innovation – we explore students' perceptions of the problem-solving environment and the influence those perceptions have on their use of innovative approaches. Specifically, we investigate two components of innovation: knowledge-application innovation (i.e. the ability to recognize when certain knowledge applies) and solution innovation (i.e. the range and novelty of ideas produced in the solution search).
