This is a project to offer the Forum on Inclusive STEMM Entrepreneurship (FISE), a novel effort to broaden the participation of underrepresented minority women in STEMM entrepreneurship and to enhance the diversity of the science and engineering workforce. Through a convening of educators, entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, industry leaders, investors and policy experts, entrepreneurial education thought leaders, and intersectionality scholars the PI proposes to use this conference as a platform for building capacity in the preparation and development of future entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups. The PI also seeks to contribute to the emerging field of research that bridges tech entrepreneurship and education policy.
The proposed forum has the potential to advance knowledge in the field of entrepreneurship education and engineering education. Given the dearth of research-based interventions to broaden participation in tech entrepreneurship, this conference offers an opportunity for participants to contribute to the leading edge of research and interventions in this field.
The convening and associated activities will leverage the social capital of knowledgeable experts in the academy and industry, investors, entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs to address critical needs of the nation that relate to enhanced global competitiveness, an improved national economy, and the participation of underrepresented cohorts in entrepreneurship and commercialization.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Gilda Barabino
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program assists universities and colleges in diversifying the STEM workforce through their efforts at significantly increasing the numbers of students from historically underrepresented minority populations to successfully complete high quality degree programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The LSAMP Bridge to the Baccalaureate (B2B) funding opportunity provides support for historically underrepresented minority STEM students who begin their instruction at a community college with the intent to transfer into 4-year STEM degree programs in addition to other infrastructure support such as STEM faculty professional development. This project, Educational Network to GAin STEM Graduates and Enhance STEM Education (ENGAGE), broadens participation of underrepresented minority (URM) students and enhances diversity in STEM. Valencia College, on behalf of the Central Florida STEM Alliance (CFSA), seeks to significantly increase the number of URM STEM students transferring from CFSA two-year colleges, Valencia College, Lake-Sumter State College and Polk State College, to STEM baccalaureate degree programs at regional university partners, the Florida Institute of Technology, Florida Polytechnic University, University of Central Florida, University of Florida and University of South Florida.
ENGAGE creates a network between secondary education, community colleges, four-year institutions and graduate programs to offer viable pathways to STEM degree achievement. ENGAGE supports URM students' access and early exposure to STEM disciplines through comprehensive support services with linkages to university LSAMP partners including the Florida-Georgia LSAMP Bridges to the Doctorate program. ENGAGE advances research on effective practices in engaging URM students through the academic, social, and professional integration of STEM that aligns with the LSAMP model. ENGAGE informs the STEM community on institutional practices that impact recruitment, retention, and transfer-readiness strategies specific to URM STEM student success at two-year colleges. Through this LSAMP B2B partnership, ENGAGE seeks to achieve significant gains in the development of a diverse, globally-competitive workforce and create new STEM pathways for URM students leading to an increase of URM graduates with STEM baccalaureate and graduate degrees.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Kathleen PlinskeCory BlackwellReginal WebbEugene Jones
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The NSF INCLUDES program supports models, networks, partnerships and research to ensure the broadening participation in STEM of women, members of racial and ethnic groups that have been historically underrepresented, persons of low socio-economic status, and people with disabilities.
The Algebra Project, in partnership with the Young People's Project, will convene a conference on inclusion in science, technology, engineering and mathematics(STEM) higher education in support of the National Science Foundation's Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (NSF INCLUDES) initiative. The conference will examine a critical question: What roles and structures are needed for a mini-backbone organization in order to scale a "bottom up" model of social change into an organized, full scale collective impact model? Additionally, the conference will develop participants' capacity to link action on the various design challenges, and backbone structures, to future actions that meet the needs of a potential Alliance on this Broadening Participation Challenge and others facing similar challenges.
Five pre-conference design teams will focus on key components to improve education of students from underrepresented and disadvantaged populations over a four-month period prior to the convening of the stakeholders in St. Louis, Missouri in 2017.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Robert MosesBeverly Walker
resourceprojectProfessional Development and Workshops
This is an "Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science" (INCLUDES) Design and Development Launch Pilot that will implement a plan to assess the feasibility of a strategy designed to ensure high levels of improvement in K-12 grade students' mathematics achievement. The plan will focus on an often-neglected group of students--those who have been performing at the lowest quartile on state tests of mathematics, including African American, Hispanic, Native American, students with disabilities, and those segregated in urban and rural communities across the country. The project will draw on lessons learned from the nation's Civil Rights Movement and a community-organizing strategy learned during the struggle to achieve voting rights for African Americans. The Algebra Project (AP) is a national, nonprofit organization that uses mathematics as an organizing tool to ensure quality public school education for every child in America; it believes that every child has a right to a quality education to succeed in this technology-based society. AP's unique approach to school reform intentionally develops sustainable, student-centered models by building coalitions of stakeholders within the local communities, particularly the historically underserved populations. The AP works to change the deeply rooted social attitudes that encourage the disenfranchisement of a third of the nation's population. It delivers a multi-pronged approach to build demand for and support of quality public schools, including research and development, school development, and community development education reform efforts through K-12 initiatives.
The Algebra Project and the Young People's Project (YPP) will join efforts to bring together over 70 individuals and organizations, including 17 universities of which 8 are Historical Black Colleges and Universities, school districts, mathematics educators, and researchers to examine their experiences, and use collective learning to refine and hone strategies that they have piloted and tested to promote mathematics inclusion. The role of YPP in the proposed project will be to organize and facilitate the youth component, such that project activities reflect the language and culture of students, continuously leveraging and building upon their voice, creative input, and ongoing feedback. YPP will conduct workshops for students organized around math-based games that provide collective experiences in which student learning requires individual reflection, small group work, teamwork and discussion. The proposed work will comprise the design of effective learning opportunities; building and supporting a cadre of teachers who can effectively work with students learning under the proposed approach; using technologies to enhance teaching and learning; and utilizing evaluation and research to drive continuous improvement. Because bringing together an effective network with diverse expertise to collaborate towards national impact requires expert facilitation processes, the project will establish working groups around three major principles: (1) Organizing from the bottom up through students, their teachers, and others in local communities committed to their education, allied with individuals and organizations who have expertise and dedication for achieving the stated goals, can produce significant progress and the conditions for collective impact; (2) Effective learning materials and formal and informal learning opportunities in mathematics can be designed and implemented for students performing in the bottom academic quartile; and (3) Teachers and other educators can become more proficient and more confident in their capacity to produce students who are successful in learning the level of mathematics required for full participation in STEM. The working groups will also be tasked to consider two cross-cutting topics: (a) the communication structures and technologies needed to operate and expand the present network, and to create the "backbone" and other structures needed to operate and expand the network; and (b) the measurements and metrics for major needs, such as assessing students' mathematics literacy, socio-emotional development in specified areas; teachers' competencies; as well as the work of the network. The final product of this plan will be a "Theory of Collective Action and Strategic Plan". The plan will contain recommendations for collective actions needed in order for the current network to coordinate, add appropriate partners, develop the needed backbone structures, and become an NSF Alliance for national impact on the broadening participation challenge of improving the mathematics achievement. An external evaluator will conduct both formative and summative aspects of this process.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Robert MosesNell CobbGregory BudzbanMaisha MosesWilliam Crombie
Community colleges play a vital role in educating undergraduate students. These higher education institutions educate nearly half of the nation's undergraduate students, particularly among low-income and first-generation students and students of color. Because of the rich diversity that currently exists at these institutional-types, there are immense opportunities to broadening participation throughout the engineering enterprise. To this end, the investigator outlines a joint collaboration with five community colleges, three school systems, two college career academies, and a state partner in Georgia - referred as the Georgia Science, Technology, and Engineering Partnerships for Success (GA STEPS) - to provide dual enrollment classes in career pathways for Georgia high school students in grades 9-12, thereby allowing secondary students to earn college credit. The Georgia STEPS program proposes to leverage mechatronics engineering as a means for broadening engineering participation for community colleges and underserved, underrepresented populations in 48 rural counties to increase engineering awareness, skills training and college and career readiness. The project builds on an existing collaboration that has developed successful engineering opportunities at the community college level, by including a wider regional network of rural Georgia counties and high schools. Further, this project has immense potential to transform engineering education and course-taking for students at the secondary and postsecondary level in Georgia and beyond. It has potential great potential to be scaled and replicated at other placed around the United States.
The project's intellectual merit and innovation is that it leverages a successful mechatronics engineering curriculum that supports engineering skills that support local industry as well as supporting innovations in the mechatronics field. The project includes a collective impact framework, involving various stakeholders and aligning quantitative and qualitative metrics and measurable objectives. The broader impacts of this project is that it increases the engineering knowledge and skills of underserved, underrepresented students that are enrolled in community colleges. Also, the impact to rural communities in Georgia support the fact that this project would meet broader groups that can be positively impacted by this type of collaborative. The ability to provide different parts of this engineering discipline across broad audiences in community colleges - that support underrepresented groups understanding of mechatronics engineering - is broadly useful to the field of engineering.
This article discusses the Youth in Science Action Club (SAC), which uses citizen science to investigate nature, document their discoveries, share data with the scientific community, and design strategies to protect the planet. Through collaborations with regional and national partners, SAC expands access to environmental science curriculum and training resources.
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Laura HerszenhornKatie LevedahlSuzi Taylor
resourceresearchWebsites, Mobile Apps, and Online Media
This brief discusses the PLUM LANDING Explore Outdoors Toolkit, a new set of free, public media resources designed to help informal educators and parents infuse science learning into outdoor recreation. Developed by trusted media producer WGBH in partnership with researchers at Education Development Center (EDC), the Toolkit aims to get children (ages 6–9) from low-income, urban communities outside so they can explore the environment around them while debunking the myth that nature is something that only exists beyond city limits.
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Marion GoldsteinElizabeth PiersonJamie KynnLisa Famularo
This is the solicitation for proposals to the NSF Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to and evidence based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning opportunities for the public in informal environments; provide multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences; advance innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments; and engage the public of all ages in learning STEM in informal environments.
The Montana Girls STEM Collaborative brings together organizations and individuals throughout Montana who are committed to informing and motivating girls to pursue careers in STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The Collaborative offers professional development, networking and collaboration opportunities to adults who offer and/or support STEM programs for girls and other youth typically under-represented in STEM. The vision of Montana Girls STEM is that every young person in Montana has the opportunity to learn about STEM careers and feels welcome pursuing any dream they
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Suzi TaylorRay CallawayCathy Witlock
resourceresearchProfessional Development and Workshops
This multiple case study analysis investigates the perceptions of four science teachers who are repeat attendees at professional development programs coordinated by a university center. Adult learning theory provided a lens to view the motivated participants of the study and each of the five assumptions were present. Findings revealed three themes: (1) these science teachers perceive dual identities as both an educator and a scientist: as a professional educator they are focused on developing new lessons to bring relevant and engaging materials to their students while at the same time they
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Julie R. BokorKent CrippenMary Jo Koroly
To address the need for STEM reform in K-12 schools, this article describes the design and implementation of a rigorous, interdisciplinary science and research program (ISR) in two local high schools (HS-S and HS-H). The ISR, adapted from the successful School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt program, provides seven courses over four years that focus on the development of critical thinking skills and the ability to construct and perform hypothesis-driven research projects. The courses are co-taught by a science teacher (masters or doctoral level) and a Ph.D. scientist. Overall, students in
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Jennifer A. UfnarVirginia L. Shepherd
resourceresearchGames, Simulations, and Interactives
We describe a game and teachers’ experiences using it in their middle and high school science courses. The game, which is called “Luck of the Draw,” was designed to engage middle, high school, and college students in genetics and encourage critical thinking about issues, such as genetic engineering. We introduced the game to high school science teachers attending a summer workshop and asked them to describe their initial impressions of the game and how they might use it in their classes; later, during the academic year, we asked them whether they used the game in their classrooms and, if so
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Alicia BowerKami L. TsaiCarey S. RyanRebecca AndersonAndrew JametonMaurice Godfrey