Broadening Education in Naval Science and Technology with an Expanded Undergraduate Curriculum and Learning Community
Abstract
Approved for public release.An expansion to our first ONR-STEM project is proposed which emphasizes a major overhaul of the Naval Hydrodynamics certificate program to produce a much broader Naval Science & Technology certificate. The modification will significantly increase the program scope by adding core courses in control and autonomous systems, while improving hands-on and experiential learning strategies and enhancing naval S&T content in other courses within andoutside of the certificate. The new focus on autonomous systems contributes to Navy Framework Priorities, including Augmented Warfighter, Integrated and Distributed Forces, Operational Endurance, and Sensing & Sense-making. The project also supports the 2018 National Defense Strategy through enhancement of civilian workforce expertise, fostering the development of advanced autonomous systems, and promotes a culture of innovation and performance in our graduates. Teaching and research in the areas of control and autonomoussystems are also growing areas of strength within the Mechanical Engineering program at the University of Iowa. Revision of existing certificate courses will include development of an online course offering, and extension of physical lab resources to increase accessibility and strengthen educational collaborations with the Navy and its contractors. To support the curricular activities while increasing participation among non-certificate students, the secondmajor objective is to strengthen our extra-curricular learning community in order to attract and retain students in the curricular program, while increasing and supporting informal participation of a broader range of students. Our autonomous boat competition club, IMARC, will anchor this community, which we will support with relevant curriculum and competition-related courseprojects, by adding to the available physical and virtual tools, and through establishment of a distributable knowledge base of instructional videos. To build our brand among prospective students and employers, we will continue to expand our secondary school outreach program, and develop relationships with new project sponsors (especially in areas of curricular expansion).We will continue to assess students~ learning experiences and their conceptions of naval S&T challenges and opportunities using quantitative comparisons of student performance across cohorts of students in core Naval Science & Technology courses and the learning community.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 2019
- Source ID
- N000141912544
Entities
People
- James Buchholz
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Iowa