A makerspace is a place where participants explore their own interests and learn by creating, tinkering, and inventing artifacts through the use of a rich variety of tools and materials. This project will develop and research a flexible model for makerspaces that can be adapted to local settings to support informal STEM learning for hospitalized, chronically ill patients in pediatric environments who are predominantly youth of color from low-income backgrounds. These youth are subject to health disparities and healthcare inequities. Their frequent absence from school and other activities disrupt friendship formations, reduce their opportunities for social support, reduce their access to environments where they can feel a sense of self-agency through learning and creative activities. Through patient centered co-design, this project will build adaptable STEM makerspace environments conducive to STEM-rich learning, the exercise of self-agency, and development of STEM identity. Project design will focus on the sensitive nature of working with vulnerable populations (i.e., immunocompromised patients). The project will develop and disseminate several resources: (1) a flexible makerspace model that can be adapted to work in different pediatric settings; (2) research methods for conducting research in highly sensitive environments with and alongside young patients; and (3) professional development resources and a playbook including guidebook and facilitators guide that will articulate principles and processes for designing, implementing and sustaining makerspaces in pediatric settings. These resources will be widely disseminated through maker and other informal STEM networks.
The project will pursue two innovations. First, the project will develop the physical design of adaptable informal STEM makerspaces in pediatric settings. Second, the project will develop innovative patient-centered methodologies for studying approaches to physical design and the effects of makerspace installations for informal STEM-learning, self-agency, and STEM identity development. Using a design-based research approach, the project will investigate: (1) the extent to which physical makerspace designs support access to material, relational, and ideational resources for STEM-learning and well-being; (2) the extent to which makerspace installations, researchers, and medical care staff support patients in accessing and generating tools and other resources for personal learning and a sense of agency; and (3) the extent to which makerspace design with a focus on affording material, relational, and ideational resources provide rich opportunities for young patients to explore their own interests and cultivate STEM identities. One of the project's innovations, beyond development of adaptable makerspace model involves developing an innovative patient-centered methodology for conducting educational research toward broadening participation in STEM in highly sensitive medical care environments. The project will employ a mixed-methods research design and collect a variety of data to address these areas of research including documentation of makerspace design plans and renderings, observational data gathered through fieldnotes, video and audio recordings, informal interviews with patients, their families, and child-care staff, and patient generated artifacts. Articles for researchers and practitioners will be submitted for publication to appropriate professional journals and peer-reviewed publications.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of settings.
This Innovations in Development 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.
Virtual Reality (VR) shows promise to broaden participation in STEM by engaging learners in authentic but otherwise inaccessible learning experiences. The immersion in authentic learner environments, along with social presence and learner agency, that is enabled by VR helps form memorable learning experiences. VR is emerging as a promising tool for children with autism. While there is wide variation in the way people with autism present, one common set of needs associated with autism that can be addressed with VR is sensory processing. This project will research and model how VR can be used to minimize barriers for learners with autism, while also incorporating complementary universal designs for learning (UDL) principles to promote broad participation in STEM learning. As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of settings. This project will build on a prototype VR simulation, Mission to Europa Prime, that transports learners to a space station for exploration on Jupiter's moon Europa, a strong candidate for future discovery of extraterrestrial life and a location no human can currently experience in person. The prototype simulation will be expanded to create a full, immersive STEM-based experience that will enable learners who often encounter cognitive, social, and emotional barriers to STEM learning in public spaces, particularly learners with autism, to fully engage and benefit from this STEM-learning experience. The simulation will include a variety of STEM-learning puzzles, addressing science, mathematics, engineering, and computational thinking through authentic and interesting problem-solving tasks. The project team's learning designers and researchers will co-design puzzles and user interfaces with students at a post-secondary institute for learners with autism and other learning differences. The full VR STEM-learning simulation will be broadly disseminated to museums and other informal education programs, and distributed to other communities.
Project research is designed to advance knowledge about VR-based informal STEM learning and the affordances of VR to support learners with autism. To broaden STEM participation for all, the project brings together research at the intersection of STEM learning, cognitive and educational neuroscience, and the human-technology frontier. The simulation will be designed to provide agency for learners to adjust a STEM-learning VR experience for their unique sensory processing, attention, and social anxiety needs. The project will use a participatory design process will ensure the VR experience is designed to reduce barriers that currently exclude learners with autism and related conditions from many informal learning opportunities, broadening participation in informal STEM learning. Design research, usability, and efficacy studies will be conducted with teens and adults at the Pacific Science Center and Boston Museum of Science, which serve audiences with autism, along with the general public. Project research is grounded in prior NSF-funded research and leverages the team's expertise in STEM learning simulations, VR development, cognitive psychology, universal design, and informal science education, as well as the vital expertise of the end-user target audience, learners with autism. In addition to being shared at conferences, the research findings will be submitted for publication to peer-reviewed journals for researchers and to appropriate publications for VR developers and disseminators, museum programs, neurodiverse communities and other potentially interested parties.
This Innovations in Development 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.
DATE:
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Teon EdwardsJodi Asbell-ClarkeJamie LarsenIbrahim Dahlstrom-Hakki
The National Federation of the Blind (NFB), in partnership with scholars from Utah State University and educators from the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM), has developed the Spatial Ability and Blind Engineering Research (SABER) project to assess and improve the spatial ability of blind teens in order to broaden their participation in STEM fields. The goals of the project include:
Contribute to the knowledge base of effective practices regarding informal STEM education for the blind, particularly relating to the development of spatial reasoning abilities.
Educate families, blind
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings. Blind youth are generally excluded from STEM learning and careers because materials for their education are often composed for sighted individuals. In this proposed Innovations in Development project, the PIs suggest that spatial acuity is an important element in order for blind persons to understand physical and mental structures. Thus, in this investigation, efforts will be made to educated blind youth in the discipline of engineering. A total of 200 blind students, ages 12-20 along with 30 informal STEM educators will participate in the program. This effort is shared with the National Federation of the Blind, Utah State University, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and the Lifelong Learning Group.
The National Federation of the Blind, in partnership with scholars from Utah State University and educators from the Science Museum of Minnesota will develop a five-year Innovations in Development project in order to broaden the participation of blind students in STEM fields through the development of instruction and accessible tools that assess and improve the spatial ability of blind youth. The partnership with the Science Museum will facilitate the creation of informal science content for students and professional development opportunities for informal educators. Evaluation will be conducted by Lifelong Learning Group of the Columbus Center of Science and Industry. Activities will begin in year one with a week-long, engineering design program for thirty blind high-school students at the Federation of the blind headquarters in Baltimore. Year two will feature two similarly sized programs, taking place at the Science Museum. While spatial ability is linked to performance in science, research has not been pursued as to how that ability can be assessed, developed, and improved in blind youth. Further, educators are often unaware of ways to deliver science concepts to blind students in a spatially enhanced manner, and students do not know how to advocate for these accommodations, leading blind youth to abandon science directions. Literature on the influences of a community of practice on youth with disabilities, as well as nonvisual tools for experiencing engineering, is lacking. This project will advance understanding of how blind people can participate in science, and how spatial ability can be developed and bolstered through informal engineering activities and an existing community of practice.