[CCoE Notice] Funding Opportunity: Office of Naval Research Announces STEM Education Grand Challenge Competition Lewis-Burke Associates LLC – June 21, 2011

[Fritz Claydon]

*Funding Opportunity: Office of Naval Research Announces STEM Education
Grand Challenge Competition*



*Lewis-Burke Associates LLC – June 21, 2011 *



On June 15, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) announced $8 million in
funding for a new Grand Challenge for science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics (STEM) education as part of its fiscal year (FY) 2011 Broad
Agency Announcement for Science and Technology.   ONR is seeking to fund
teams to develop, “adaptive, generalizable intelligent tutors for STEM and
naval training and education,” that can dramatically increase students’
knowledge retention, reasoning and decision‐making skills compared to
traditional classroom teaching.



In Phase I, ONR will fund up to four interdisciplinary teams at up to $1.5
million each over two years to develop intelligent computer-based tutors for
STEM learning.  In Phase II, up to two teams from Phase I will be selected
for up to $1 million in additional funding to adapt their tutor to
naval-specific education.  Proposals should focus on developing a tutor for
a specific part of the middle or high school STEM curriculum, such as
algebra or chemistry, and incorporate cutting-edge learning science and
emerging technologies.  Proposals should also include a plan for evaluating
the tutor in school settings.



Examples of learning science and technological research challenges required
to develop an intelligent STEM tutor include (as identified in the Special
Notice announcing the Grand Challenge):

·         Dynamic, flexible, low cost, and OPEN Architecture networks that
fully support the current and anticipated suite of training technologies;

·         Software technologies and capabilities that mirror the
interactions between world class teachers and individual students to provide
a one‐on‐one tutorial experience;

·         Automated knowledge elicitation and knowledge engineering efforts
necessary for developing instructional content;

·         Science-based understanding of how students in different age
groups learn;

·         Authoring techniques that allow both students and local educators
to produce and/or edit effective educational materials;

·         Instructional techniques and methods that are the most effective
and appropriate for achieving specific instructional objectives; and

·         Emerging technologies, such as machine learning and natural
language processing as well as theories of learning, like meta‐cognition,
cognitive load theory, self‐explanation, game‐based training and
rehearsal‐through‐testing.



White papers are required and are due by *August 1*.  Full proposals will be
by invitation only.



More information can be found in the special notice outlining the Grand
Challenge at:
http://www.onr.navy.mil/~/media/Files/Funding-Announcements/Special-Notice/11-SN-0019.ashx.




The announcement of the new challenge was made as part of a two-day ONR STEM
Education forum (
http://www.onr.navy.mil/Conference-Event-ONR/STEM-Forum.aspx) and coincided
with the release of a new Navy STEM education roadmap that highlights
collaboration with outside groups as a key pillar of naval efforts (
http://www.onr.navy.mil/Education-Outreach/STEM-Strategy-2011-Navy.aspx).
These ONR initiatives are part of a wider Department of Defense (DOD) effort
to improve STEM education to develop the future technical workforce.







*Miriam Quintal*

Lewis-Burke Associates LLC

1341 G Street NW

8th Floor

Washington, DC 20005

P: 202-289-7475

F  202-289-7454
E: Miriam at Lewis-Burke.com

-- 
Fritz Claydon Ph.D.
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Associate Dean of Administration and Research
University of Houston
Cullen College of Engineering
713.743.4204
fclaydon at uh.edu


[image: Logo]

 *A Carnegie-designated Tier One public research university*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://Bug.EGR.UH.EDU/pipermail/engi-dist/attachments/20110622/a674965a/attachment.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 2553 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://Bug.EGR.UH.EDU/pipermail/engi-dist/attachments/20110622/a674965a/attachment.gif