Grassroots women's learn-to-code groups are springing up in many places. This infographic a study of one such group, in which more-knowledgeable "coaches" lead novice "learners" in learning software programming on the Salesforce platform. This study found that women create such groups to have supportive, non-threatening environments that nuture their learning to build confidence before entering male-dominated software development communities.
The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), in collaboration with neuroscientists at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), museum professionals, and community partners, proposes to create a 1,000 to 1,500-square-foot traveling exhibition, accompanying website, and complementary programming to promote public understanding of neuroscience research and its relevance to healthy brain development in early childhood. The exhibition and programs will focus on current research on the developing brain, up to age 5, and will reach a national audience of adult caregivers of young children and their families, with a special emphasis on Latino families. The project will be developed bi-culturally and bilingually (English/Spanish) in order to better engage underrepresented Latino audiences. The exhibition and programs will be designed and tested with family audiences.
The exhibition project, Interactive Family Learning in Support of Early Brain Development, has four goals that primarily target adult caregivers of children up to age 5:
Foster engagement with and interest in neurodevelopment during early childhood
Enhance awareness of how neuroscience research leads to knowledge about healthy development in early childhood
Inform and empower adult caregivers to enrich their children’s early learning experiences
Reach diverse family audiences, especially Latino caregivers and their families
A collaborative, multidisciplinary team of neuroscience researchers, experts in early childhood education, museum educators, and OMSI personnel with expertise in informal science education and bilingual exhibit development will work together to ensure that current science is accurately interpreted and effectively presented to reach the target audiences. The project will foster better public understanding of early brain development and awareness and confidence in caregivers in using play to enrich their children’s experiences and support healthy brain development. Visitors will explore neuroscience and early childhood development through a variety of forms—multi-sensory, hands-on interactive exhibits, graphic panels, real objects, facilitated experiences, and an accompanying website.
Following the five-year development process, the exhibition will begin an eight-year national tour, during which it will reach more than one million people.
In this final chapter, we reflect on four themes that cut across the preceding chapters on evaluating outcomes in informal STEM education (ISE): validity, context, technology, and evaluation capacity building. We also note several topics that we hope will be addressed more extensively in future conversations about evaluation in ISE. These include the ethical responsibilities of evaluators, theory‐based approaches to evaluation, formal training and professional development pathways for evaluators, and funding opportunities and the structural landscape of the field.
RUFF FAMILY SCIENCE is a project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that aims to foster joint media engagement and hands-on science exploration among diverse, low-income parents and their 4- to 8-year-old children. The project is using a research and design process to create an implementation model and prototype resources (digital media, hands-on activities, and supports for educators) to build new knowledge about the potential for digital media to inspire and support intergenerational science learning among vulnerable families.
WGBH and Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC)
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mary HaggertyHeather LavigneJessica AndrewsAlexia RaynalMarion GoldsteinJaime Gutierrez
In 2018, the Croucher Foundation conducted its third annual mapping exercise for the out-of-school STEM learning ecosystem in Hong Kong.
The study reveals a rich and vibrant ecosystem for out-of-school STEM in Hong Kong with over 3,000 discrete activities covering a very wide range of science disciplines. This third report indicates extremely rapid growth in available out-of-school STEM activities compared to 2016 and an even larger increase in the number of organisations offering out-of-school STEM activities in Hong Kong.
STEM educators are eager to foster long term collaboration with each other, and with schools. At the same time, good working practice by schools, teachers, STEM educators and institutions that involves and engages local communities was discovered, showing the diversified modes of connection which could enhance the sustainability of STEM ecosystem.
We trust that this three-year study with its associated digital maps, provides a useful resource for schools, teachers, students, parents, STEM educators and education policy makers in Hong Kong.
The goal of our research is to identify strengths and weaknesses of high school level science fair and improvements that might enhance learning outcomes based on empirical assessment of student experiences. We use the web-based data collection program REDCap to implement anonymous and voluntary surveys about science fair experiences with two independent groups -- high school students who recently competed in the Dallas Regional Science and Engineering Fair and post high school students (undergraduates, 1st year medical students, and 1st year biomedical graduate students) on STEM education
Research misconduct has become an important matter of concern in the scientific community. The extent to which such behavior occurs early in science education has received little attention. In the current study, using the web-based data collection program REDCap, we obtained responses to an anonymous and voluntary survey about science fair from 65 high school students who recently competed in the Dallas Regional Science and Engineering Fair and from 237 STEM-track, post-high school students (undergraduates, 1st year medical students, and 1st year biomedical graduate students) doing research at
This paper describes a follow‐up focus group study for the larger Exhibit Designs for Girls' Engagement (EDGE) project. Grounded in Culturally Responsive Pedagogical theory (CRP), the project aimed to understand the relationship between female responsive designs and girls' engagement at STEM exhibits. After developing a Female‐Responsive Design (FRD) Framework and conducting a large‐scale study to determine the most important design attributes for engaging girls at exhibits, the final step involved a qualitative investigation into those design attributes. Four focus groups with 22 girls aged 8
This three-year research and implementation project empowers middle school LatinX youth to employ their own assets and funds of knowledge to solve community problems through engineering. Only 7% of adults in the STEM job cluster are of Hispanic/Latino origin. There is a continuing need for filling engineering jobs in our current and future economy. This project will significantly broaden participation of LatinX youth in engineering activities at a critical point as they make career decisions. Design Squad Global LatinX expands on a tested model previously funded by NSF and shown to be successful. It will enable LatinX youth to view themselves as designers and engineers and to build from their strengths to expand their skills and participation in science and engineering. The project goals are to: 1) develop an innovative inclusive approach to informal engineering education for LatinX students that can broaden their engineering participation and that of other underrepresented groups, (2) to galvanize collaborations across diverse local, national, and international stakeholders to create a STEM learning ecosystem and (3) to advance knowledge about a STEM pedagogy that bridges personal-cultural identity and experience with engineering knowledge and skills. Project deliverables include a conceptual framework for a strength-based approach to engineering education for LatinX youth, a program model that is asset based, a collection of educational resources including a club guide for how to scaffold culturally responsive engineering challenge activities, an online training course for club leaders, and a mentoring strategy for university engineering students working with middle school youth. Project partners include the global education organization, iEARN, the Society of Women Engineers, and various University engineering programs.
The research study will employ an experimental study design to evaluate the impact on youth participating in the Design Squad LatinX programs. The key research questions are (1) Does participation increase students' positive perceptions of themselves and understanding of engineering and global perspectives? (2) To what extent do changes in understanding engineering vary by community (site) and by student characteristics (age, gender, ethnicity)? (3) Do educators and club leaders increase their positive perceptions of youths' funds of knowledge and their own understanding of engineering? and (4) Do university mentors increase their ability to lead informal engineering/STEM education with middle school youth? A sample from 72 local Design Squad LatinX clubs with an enrollment of 10-15 students will be drawn with half randomly assigned to the participant condition and half to the control condition. Methods used include pre and post surveys, implementation logs for checks on program implementation, site visits to carry out observations, focus groups with students and interviews with adult leaders. Data will be analyzed by estimating hierarchical linear models with observations. In addition, in-situ ethnographically-oriented observations as well as interviews at two sites will be used to develop qualitative case studies.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mary Haggerty
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
STEAM, the use of art as a context and tool for science education, is currently a hot topic in the science education field. In almost all instances of study and practice, it involves the use of science-themed or science-informed art in science education. As such, it does not take advantage of the majority of artistic output that does not have an obvious connection to science. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recently called for more research to expand the "limited but promising" evidence that integrating arts and humanities with science education leads to better learning. The goal of this 2.5-day conference is to bring together representatives of both art and science groups to have a shared discussion around how non-scientific art can influence science education in theory, and how we can apply empirical results to the theory. For purposes of this conference, "non-science art" is defined as art that was not inspired by science. Conference attendees will include researchers (art and science education researchers) and practitioners (artists, art museum interpreters, and science educators). The conference will take place during the 2020 Black Creativity exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago. It is anticipated that by holding the conference at that time the audience for the conference and its impact will be informed by more diverse attendance.
The conference will be implemented starting with a pre-conference reading. Attendees will be sent a copy of the white paper from the Art as a Way of Knowing report for background reading and also asked to contribute to a Google Document that describes their various contexts. Each day of the conference will focus on a theme -- state of the field and possibilities and research -- and be comprised of large and small group interactions. Attendees will be invited from the ranks of practitioners, researchers and educators in the art and science education fields; several slots will be available for open (non-invited) participants. Key outcomes include: (a) a summary of all the research that has been conducted on using non-science art in science education, (b) starting points for building a theory on why non-science art can be used in science education; and (c) a list of specific research topics that would help inform, advance, and test the theory. In addition to assessing satisfaction with the conference, evaluation will also include a one-year post conference survey to investigate impact of participation in the conference.
This conference will generate products that will give guidance to both researchers and practitioners who want to use art in science education. These products include a white paper synthesizing the discussion and appendices that include raw transcripts and a bibliography of resources. Another product is a roadmap to create interventions that can be studied, which should lead to a stronger, more rigorous theory of practice about how art can be integrated into science education.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.
This report summarizes the evaluation outcomes of the Collaborative Project Management (CoPM) Institute project, a two-day convening centered on bringing proven project management skills and approaches in the for-profit world to the informal science education (ISE) community to support effective collaborations and successful outcomes. The CoPM Institute was conceptualized as a pilot effort to test the effectiveness of porting of tools and frameworks for collaborative project management from the business/for-profit environment to advance the following project goals:
Build the capacity of
Informal learning institutions, such as science centers and museums, are well-positioned to broaden participation in engineering pathways by providing children from underrepresented groups with motivational, self-directed engineering design experiences. Though many informal learning institutions offer opportunities for young visitors to engage in engineering activities, little is known about the specific features of these activities that support children's motivation in engineering design processes such as problem scoping, testing, and iteration. This project will address this gap and advance foundational knowledge by identifying features of engineering design activities, as implemented within an informal setting, which support underrepresented children's engineering motivation and persistence in engineering tasks. Researchers at New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) will observe children interacting with families and museum educators as they engage in different engineering design activities in NYSCI's Design Lab, an exhibition space devoted to hands-on exploration of engineering design. They will also survey and interview the children and their caregivers about these experiences. Analyses of these data sources will result in a description of features of design activities foster motivation and task persistence in engineering design. Findings will be disseminated nationally to other informal learning institutions, which in turn can use the knowledge generated from this project to create motivational, research-based, field-tested engineering design experiences for young visitors, especially for children from underrepresented groups. The experiences may encourage children to further pursue engineering pathways, resulting in a diversified engineering workforce with the potential to drive and sustain national innovation and global technological leadership.
This project uses the framework of goal orientation, defined as learners' self-reflection of why and how they engage in tasks, to understand whether, how, and why underrepresented 7-12-year-olds engage in engineering design activities in an informal learning institution. Though previous research has suggested that goal orientation is strongly, positively related to learning and motivation in formal settings such as schools, research in informal settings has not robustly accounted for the role of goal orientation in participants' engagement with learning tasks in these unique learning environments. To better understand how children's goal orientations contribute to their motivation in engineering in informal learning institutions, researchers will answer the following research questions: (1) What are underrepresented children's goals and goal orientations while participating in engineering design activities in an informal setting? (2) What contextual factors--including facilitation strategies, materials, task relevance, and social interactions with family members--may support or discourage the adoption of different goal orientations? (3) How do goal orientations relate to children's learning experience in the engineering design activities and the likelihood that they will test and iterate their solutions? These questions will be answered through a mixed-method research study conducted with approximately 200 families, with children aged 7-12, recruited from underrepresented groups. Semi-structured clinical interviews, conducted with 20% of the children and their caregivers, as well as observations and surveys gathered from all families, will provide information on the children's goal orientation and engagement as they relate to specific engineering design activities. Qualitative content analyses and multilevel structural equation modeling will result in findings that will be disseminated widely to other institutions of informal learning. Ultimately, this project will generate new empirical knowledge regarding the features of engineering design activities in informal learning environments that increase engineering engagement and motivation among underrepresented children, thereby broadening participation in engineering pathways.
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.