NSF Award
2417446
This project aims to serve the national interest by developing a new introduction to wireless communications course, centered on the principles of problem- and project-based learning (PBL/PjBL) and integrating advanced visualization tools. The US national security and economic competitiveness depend on leadership in, as well as the use of advancements in, wireless technologies and their applications. Achieving these ends thus requires recruitment and development of a well-prepared workforce of wireless communications/radio frequency (RF) engineers and other STEM professionals who understand wireless communications engineering and RF concepts. With the increasing popularity of specializations that inherently produce visual, observable, or tangible outcomes, such as robotics and autonomous vehicles, the number of students choosing to study wireless communications has steadily gone down, even though wireless is a key enabling technology for many of these applications. This project brings together experts from wireless communications, engineering education, visualization, mathematics, and mathematics education to rethink how we introduce wireless communications concepts to students. All the course materials developed as a part of this project, including the lecture plan, syllabus, lecture notes/slides, projects, and interactive simulations/visualizations, will be made publicly available. This approach will offer a template that can be adopted at other schools so that they do not have to go through the whole process of redesigning the course from scratch. A subset of the projects developed as a part of this course will also be adapted for outreach events targeting pre-collegiate and first-year students. <br/><br/>Guided by the theoretical framework of experiential learning theory, this project plans to develop an interactive and visually engaging introduction to wireless communications resulting in the following innovations. First, is the redesign of a complete introductory course based on PBL/PjBL concepts that will change the way wireless principles are introduced to the students. Second, to ensure tight integration of PBL/PjBL, each learning objective of the course will be carefully mapped to the PBL/PjBL learning activities through a new “learning objective matrix” that will provide a systematic way of developing a detailed lesson plan with PBL/PjBL at its core. Third, storyboards will be integrated in the course to provide multiple potential workflow options that the students must navigate, as well as to provide a mind map to the instructors. Fourth, will be the development of the first complete suite of learning resources and projects (with a significant interactive and visualization component) for a complete course on wireless communications. Fifth, is the implementation and assessment of this course redesign that will address multiple engineering education research questions and will provide feedback for further refinements to this course. Finally, the project aims to close the gap between what academia teaches and what industry wants by closely aligning with topics of current interest to wireless industry, such as that of “digital twins,” which also advocates the use of visualization for designing and analyzing wireless systems. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through its Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.<br/><br/>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.
