The Morgan State University INCLUDES project will build on an existing regional partnership of four Historically Black Colleges and Universities that are working together to improve STEM outcomes for middle school minority male students that are local to Morgan State in Baltimore, North Carolina A&T in Greensboro, Jackson State in Mississippi, and Kentucky State in Frankfort. Additional partners include SRI International, the National CARES Mentoring Network, and the Verizon Foundation. Using the collective impact-style approaches such as planning and implementing a Network Improvement Community (NIC), developing a shared agenda and implementing mutually reinforcing activities, these partners will address two common goals: (1) Broaden the participation of underrepresented minority males in science and engineering through educational experiences that prepare them for careers in STEM fields; and (2) Create a Network Improvement Community focused on STEM achievement in minority males. Program elements include high-quality instruction in STEM content, mentoring, and professional development. The project will expand to include eight additional partners (six HBCUs and two Hispanic-Serving Institutions) and schools and districts in communities local to their campuses. The INCLUDES pilot will help scale innovations that target impacting minorities in STEM.
The project will develop STEM learning pathways for middle school minority males by harnessing the collective impact of 12 university partners, local K-12 schools and districts with which they partner, and surrounding community organizations and businesses with a vested interest in achieving common goals. Products will include a roadmap for addressing the problem through a Network Improvement Community, a website that will contribute to the knowledge base regarding effective strategies for enhancing STEM educational opportunities for minority males, and common metrics, assessments, and shared measurement systems that will be used to measure the collective impact of the Network Improvement Community.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jumoke Ladeji-OsiasCindy ZikerGeneva HaertelKamal AliAyanna GillDerrick GilmoreClay Gloster
This is a two-year "Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science" (INCLUDES) Design and Development Launch Pilot targeting high school students in the Hudson Valley, including the New York Metropolitan Area. It will support a network of institutional partners that are committed to providing internship and mentoring opportunities to youths interested in authentic research projects. The proposed work will build on a current research immersion program--the Secondary School Field Research Program (SSFRP) at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. SSFRP serves high school students, mainly from underrepresented and underserved communities, who work with college students, science teachers, and researchers around a specific science problem. Over the past decade, the program has had demonstrable impact, including attendance to college, and students' selection of STEM majors. Tracking data indicates that retention rates of its alumni in four-year colleges are well above the norm, and a significant fraction of early participants are now in graduate programs in science or engineering. The program has surpassed all expectations in its effectiveness at engaging underserved populations in science and promoting entry into college, recruitment into STEM majors, and retention through undergraduate and into graduate studies. Hence, the project's overall goal will be to extend and adapt the research-immersive summer internship model through an alliance with peer research institutions, school districts and networks, public land and resource management agencies, private funding agencies, informal educational institutions, and experts in pedagogical modeling, metrics, and evaluation. Focused on earth and environmental sciences, the summer and year-round mentoring model will allow high school students to work in research teams led by college students and teachers under the direction of research scientists. The mentoring model will be multilayered, with peer, near-peer, and researcher-student relationships interweaving throughout the learning process.
The project has formulated a set of testable explanatory hypotheses: (1) Beyond specific subject knowledge, success rests on increased student engagement in a community of practice, with near-peer mentors, teachers, and scientists in the context of scientific research; (2) The intensity of engagement also shifts the students' vision of their future to include higher education, and specifically to imagine and move toward a STEM career; and (3) Early engagement, before students attend college, is critical because high school is where students form patterns of engagement and capacities related to science learning. Thus, the immediate goal of the two-year plan will be to create approximately 11 research internship programs focused on earth and environmental sciences, and to build the networks for growth through engagement with a wider community of educational partners. The main focus of this approach will be removing barriers between high school students and STEM organizations, and adapting the current mentoring model at Columbia University to the specific cultures of other research groups and internship programs throughout the lower Hudson Valley. The team has already assembled a diverse set of partners committed to broadening participation in STEM using a collective impact approach to early engagement in project-based learning. Research partners will provide the mentors, research projects, and laboratory facilities. The educational network partners will provide access for students, particularly those from under-resourced communities to participate, as well as participation opportunities for interested teachers. Informal learning organizations will provide access to field and research sites, along with research dissemination opportunities. In Year 1, the project will conduct a series of development workshops for partners already in place and foster the formation of new partnership clusters according to shared interest, complementary resources and geographic proximity. The workshops will provide a forum for partners to learn about each other's visions, values, challenges, and existing structures, while working through theoretical and practical issues related to STEM engagement for young investigators. In Year 2, the project will target the implementation of the internship programs at various sites according to the agreed-upon goals, program model, research projects, recruitment and retention strategy, staff training, data collection, and evaluation plans. An external evaluator will address both the formative and summative evaluation of the effort directed toward examining the three project's hypotheses concerning the educational impacts of scientific research on student engagement, extent of the immersion, and overall effectiveness of the programs.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Robert NewtonLuo Cassie XuMargie TurrinEinat LevMatthew Palmer
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Physics awards smaller percentages of PhDs to women (19%) and underrepresented ethnic and racial minorities (7%) than any other field in the sciences, and underrepresentation is especially pronounced at selective universities. As global competition for scientific talent heats up and US demographics shift, cultivating a robust domestic workforce is critical to US technological leadership. We seek to build on the successful American Physical Society Bridge Program (apsbridgeprogram.org) by transforming physics graduate education to fully support the inclusion of women and ethnic and racial minorities. Our vision is to create a national network of disciplinary colleagues, expert researchers, and representatives from professional associations who will develop and build evidence-based knowledge of effective practices for recruitment, admissions, and retention of women and underrepresented ethnic and racial minorities. This pilot project will include six large, highly selective physics graduate programs to demonstrate and map out a plan for a discipline-wide effort. The pilot focuses on improving admissions practices, because this strategy promises immediate and measurable impact backed by extant research. The pilot will also take exploratory steps to develop scalable recruitment and retention strategies. To refine interventions, we will conduct research to identify and understand demographically-based loss points of students in graduate physics programs and to understand how network participation facilitates change. The project will also establish connections with other STEM disciplines, beginning with mathematics and chemistry, to explore expanding these efforts.
This project is grounded in research on diversity in graduate education, organizational learning, and the resources of networks to catalyze cultural change. The project team includes expertise in institutional change, graduate admissions, student success, diverse and inclusive environments, and social science research. The pilot advances a novel research agenda on inclusion in STEM by addressing recruitment, admissions, and retention in physics graduate education as interconnected challenges of faculty learning, professional networks, and disciplinary cultural change. Physics graduate programs will report admissions data and common metrics, and will document changes resulting from project activities. Faculty will be trained on holistic admissions and diversity in selection processes, and be guided in the use of inclusive admissions practices. An external evaluator will examine project effectiveness and readiness for scaling to an Alliance phase project.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Monica PlischTheodore HodappJulie PosseltGeraldine CochranCasey Miller
As part of an overall strategy to enhance learning within informal environments, the Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water Systems (INFEWS) and Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) programs partnered to support innovative models poised to catalyze well-integrated interdisciplinary research and development efforts within informal contexts that transform scientific understanding of the food, energy, and water systems (FEWS) nexus in order to improve system function and management, address system stress, increase resilience, and ensure sustainability. This project addresses this aim by using systems thinking and interdisciplinary integration approaches to develop a novel immersive educational simulation game and associated materials designed to highlight the role and importance of corn-water-ethanol-beef (CWEB) systems in supporting the ever increasing demands for food, energy, and water in the United States. The focus on FEWS and sustainable energy aligns well with both the INFEWS program and the sizable sustainability-related projects in the AISL program portfolio. The development and broad dissemination of a multiuser game specific to CWEB systems are particularly innovative contributions and advance for both program portfolios and their requisite fields of study. An additional unique feature of the game is the embedding of varying degrees of economic principles and decision-making along with the nuisances of cultural context as salient variables that influence systems thinking. Of note, a team of computer science, management and engineering undergraduate students at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln will be responsible for the engineering, development, and deployment of the game as their university capstone projects. If successful, this game will have a significant reach and impact on youth in informal programs (i.e., 4-H clubs), high school teachers and students in agriculture vocational education courses, college students, and the public. The impact could extend well beyond Nebraska and the targeted Midwestern region. In conjunction with the game development, mixed-methods formative and summative evaluations will be conducted by an external evaluator. The formative evaluation of the game will focus on usability testing, interest and engagement with a select sample of youth at local 4-H clubs and youth day camps. Data will be collected from embedded in-game survey questionnaires, rating scales, observations and focus groups conducted with evaluation sample. These data and feedback will be used to inform the design and refinement of the game. The summative evaluation will focus on the overall impacts of the game. Changes in agricultural systems knowledge, attitudes toward agricultural systems, interest in pursuing careers in agricultural systems, and decision making will be aligned with the Nebraska State Science Standards and tracked using the National Agricultural Literacy Outcomes (NALOs) assessment, game analytics and pre/post-test measures administered to the evaluation study sample pre/post exposure to the game.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jeyamkondan SubbiahEric ThompsonDeepak KeshwaniRichard KoelschDavid Rosenbaum
Changes in household-level actions in the U.S. have the potential to reduce rates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change by reducing consumption of food, energy and water (FEW). This project will identify potential interventions for reducing household FEW consumption, test options in participating households in two communities, and collect data to develop new environmental impact models. It will also identify household consumption behavior and cost-effective interventions to reduce FEW resource use. Research insights can be applied to increase the well-being of individuals at the household level, improve FEW resource security, reduce climate-related risks, and increase economic competitiveness of the U.S. The project will recruit, train, and graduate more than 20 students and early-career scientists from underrepresented groups. Students will be eligible to participate in exchanges to conduct interdisciplinary research with collaborators in the Netherlands, a highly industrialized nation that uses 20% less energy and water per person than the U.S.
This study uses an interdisciplinary approach to investigate methods for reducing household FEW consumption and associated direct and indirect environmental impacts, including GHG emissions and water resources depletion. The approach includes: 1) interactive role-playing activities and qualitative interviews with homeowners; 2) a survey of households to examine existing attitudes and behaviors related to FEW consumption, as well as possible approaches and barriers to reduce consumption; and 3) experimental research in residential households in two case-study communities, selected to be representative of U.S. suburban households and appropriate for comparative experiments. These studies will iteratively examine approaches for reducing household FEW consumption, test possible intervention strategies, and provide data for developing systems models to quantify impacts of household FEW resource flows and emissions. A FEW consumption-based life cycle assessment (LCA) model will be developed to provide accurate information for household decision making and design of intervention strategies. The LCA model will include the first known farm-to-fork representation of household food consumption impacts, spatially explicit inventories of food waste and water withdrawals, and a model of multi-level price responsiveness in the electricity sector. By translating FEW consumption impacts, results will identify "hot spots" and cost-effective household interventions for reducing ecological footprints. Applying a set of climate and technology scenarios in the LCA model will provide additional insights on potential benefits of technology adoption for informing policymaking. The environmental impact models, household consumption tracking tool, and role-playing software developed in this research will be general purpose and publicly available at the end of the project to inform future education, research and outreach activities.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David WatkinsBuyung AgusdinataChelsea SchellyRachael ShwomJenni-Louise Evans
This project by California State University San Marcos and their collaborators will expand and continue to innovate on a pilot Mobile Making program with the goal of developing a sustainable, regional model for serving underserved, middle-school aged youth in twelve after-school programs in the San Diego region. Evaluation of the current Mobile Making program has documented positive impacts on participants' interest, self-efficacy, and perception of the relevance of Making/STEM in everyday life, and led to a model for engaging underserved youth in Making. The work will focus on implementing the program model sustainably at greater capacity by increasing the number of undergraduate activity leaders, after-school sites, and level of community engagement. The expanded Mobile Making program is expected to engage ~1800 middle school youth at 12 local school sites, with activities facilitated by ~1020 undergraduate CSU-SM STEM majors. The sites are in ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, with as many as 90% of students at some sites qualifying for free or reduced price lunch. The undergraduate facilitators are drawn from CSU-SM's diverse student body, which includes 44% underrepresented minorities. Outcomes are expected to include increases in the youth participants' interest, self-efficacy, and perception of the relevance of Making/STEM in everyday life. Positive impacts on the undergraduate facilitators will include broadened technical skills, increased leadership and 21st century skills, and increased lifelong interest in STEM outreach/informal science education. The program is designed to achieve sustainability through innovative means such as involving undergraduate facilitators via Community Service Learning (rather than paid positions), and increased community engagement via development and support of a community of practice including local after-school providers, teachers, Makers, and University members. Evaluation of the program outcomes and lessons learned are expected to result in a comprehensive model for a sustainable, university-based after-school Making program with regional impact in underserved communities. Dissemination to other regions will be leveraged via CSU-SM's membership in the California State University (CSU) system, yielding a potential statewide impact. The support of the CSU Chancellor's Office and input from a CSU implementation group will ensure the applicability of the model to other regional university settings, identify common structural barriers and solutions, and increase the probability of secondary implementations. This work is funded by the 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 in informal environments.
Chemistry is an important and widely relevant field of science. However, when compared with other STEM content areas, chemistry is under-represented in U.S. science museums and other informal educational environments. This project will build, and build knowledge about, innovative approaches to delivering informal science learning activities in chemistry. The project will not only increase public interest and understanding of chemistry but also increase public perception of chemistry's relevance and increase the public's self-efficacy with respect to chemistry. This project outcomes will include a guide for practitioners along with activity materials that will be packaged into a kit, distributed, and replicated for use by informal science educators, chemists, and chemistry students at 250 sites across the U.S. The project team will reach out to organizations that serve diverse audiences and diverse geographic locations, including organizations in rural and inner-city areas. The kits will provide guidance on engaging girls, people with various abilities, Spanish speakers, and other diverse audiences, and include materials in Spanish. Written guides, training videos, and training slides will be included to support training in science communication in general, as well as chemistry in particular. This project is supported by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds research and innovative resources for use in a variety of settings, as a part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments.
This project will take an innovative approach to develop informal educational activities and materials about chemistry. Rather than starting with content goals, the project will start with a theoretical framework drawn from research about affecting attitudes about science related to interest, relevance, and self-efficacy. A design-based research approach (DBR) will be used to apply that framework to the development of hands-on educational activities about chemistry, while also testing and modifying the framework itself. (DBR blends empirical educational research with the theory-driven design of learning environments.) Existing or new educational activities that appear to embody key characteristics defined in the framework will be tested with public audiences for their impact on visitors. Researchers and educators will determine how different characteristics of the educational activities defined in the framework affect the outcomes. The activities will be modified and tested iteratively until the investigators achieve close alignment between framework and impacts.. The project team will continue the design-based research approach both to examine groups of activities in which synergies can have impacts beyond single interactions as well as to examine varied ways of training facilitators who can also significantly affect outcomes. In this way, the project will generate knowledge about how kits of hands-on informal learning activities can stimulate attitudes of interest, relevance, and self-efficacy with respect to the neglected field of chemistry. The project teams will broadly disseminate project outcomes within the educational research, science and informal Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education communities. While this project will focus on chemistry, the strategies it will develop and test through a design-based research process will provide valuable insight into effective approaches for informal STEM education more broadly.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This Research in Service to Practice project will examine how a wide range of pre-college out-of-school-time activities facilitate or hinder females' participation in STEM fields in terms of interest, identity, and career choices. The study will address the ongoing problem that, despite females' persistence to degree once declaring a major in college, initially fewer females than males choose a STEM career path. To uncover what these factors might be, this study will look at the extent to which college freshmen's pre-college involvement in informal activities (e.g., science clubs, internships, shadowing of STEM professionals, museum-going, engineering competitions, citizen science pursuits, summer camps, and hobbies) is associated with their career aspirations and avocational STEM interests and pursuits. While deep-seated factors, originating in culture and gender socialization, sometimes lower females' interest in STEM throughout schooling, this study will examine the degree to which out-of-school-time involvement ameliorates the subtle messages females encounter about women and science that can interfere with their aspiration to a STEM careers.
The Social Cognitive Career Theory will serve as the theoretical framework to connect the development of interest in STEM with students' later career choices. An epidemiological approach will be used to test a wide range of hypotheses garnered from a review of relevant literature, face-to-face or telephone interviews with stakeholders, and retrospective online surveys of students. These hypotheses, as well as questions about the students' demographic background and in-school experiences, will be incorporated into the main empirical instrument, which will be a comprehensive paper-and-pencil survey to be administered in classes, such as English Composition, that are compulsory for both students with STEM interests and those without by 6500 students entering 40 large and small institutions of higher learning. Data analysis will proceed from descriptive statistics, such as contingency tables and correlation matrices, to multiple regression and hierarchical modeling that will link out-of-school-time experiences to STEM interest, identity, and career aspirations. Factor analysis will be used to combine individual out-of-school activities into indices. Propensity score weighting will be used to estimate causal effects in cases where out-of-school-time activities may be confounded with other factors. The expected products will be scholarly publications and presentations. Results will be disseminated to out-of-school-time providers and stakeholders, educators, and educational researchers through appropriate-level journals and national meetings and conferences. In addition, the Public Affairs and Information Office of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics will assist with communicating results through mainstream media. Press releases will be available through academic outlets and Op-Ed pieces for newspapers. The expected outcome will be research-based evidence about which types of out-of-school STEM experiences may be effective in increasing young females' STEM interests. This information will be crucial to educators, service providers, as well as policy makers who work toward broadening the participation of females in STEM.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Roy GouldPhilip SadlerGerhard Sonnert
The Northwest Passage Project (NPP) is a collaborative effort between the University of Rhode Island (URI), Inner Space Center (ISC), Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO), the film company David Clark Inc., and several other partners, including six Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and three informal science education institutions. The project centers on a research expedition into the Arctic's Northwest Passage, which will engage intergenerational cohorts of high school, undergraduate, and graduate students in hands-on research aboard the U.S. tall ship SSV Oliver Hazard Perry (OHP). During the expedition, a professional film crew will produce a two-hour documentary focused on the NPP's innovative model of interdisciplinary informal STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning and highlight the expedition's research, participants, and the sociological issues related to the changing Arctic environment. Because the Canadian Arctic is remote and costly to access, the project will maximize NSF's investment by giving broad audiences access to the science and excitement of the expedition through the documentary. In addition, this informal science learning opportunity will not only engage students with scientists in authentic research, but also train the students to deliver daily live broadcasts from sea to three well-established U.S. informal science education institutions: the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), the Exploratorium, and the Alaska Sea Life Center (ASLC). The daily broadcasts will also reach the public in real time via the project's interactive website, providing the opportunity for people to post questions to the scientists and students onboard the ship. The NPP has great potential to benefit society by enhancing awareness of the changing Arctic's ecosystems and increasing science literacy. The hands-on research experiences will enhance the college readiness of the participating high school students and encourage the undergraduate students from the six partner MSIs to consider a graduate course of study and/or pursue STEM careers. The graduate students will also be more career-ready, as they gain public communication and leadership skills necessary for 21st century scientists. The Northwest Passage Project is designed to advance knowledge and understanding within the practice of informal science education, as well as in the field of Arctic science. The project goals include: increasing public awareness and understanding of the changing Arctic ecosystem; increase public understanding about Arctic research and the scientific process; increase the Informal Science Education (ISE) field's understanding of the public's learning process when engaged in live interactions with scientists and student 'science communicators'; increase the ISE field's understanding of the value of immersive science experiences and impact on students from underserved and underrepresented populations; and to build or extend the capacity of ISE institutions to make connections between polar scientists, students, journalists and the public. The NPP is creative in that it combines the engagement of students in field-based scientific research, live broadcasts from sea to ISE institutions, and the production of a full-scale documentary for public audiences. A potentially transformative component to the ISE activities involves six Minority Serving Institution partners--Florida International University; University of Illinois, Chicago; California State University, Channel Islands; Texas State University; Virginia Commonwealth University and City College of New York--whose students will have the opportunity for a life-changing experience that may tip the scale toward their interest in STEM careers. Each of these students will develop news stories, host screenings of the film at their respective campuses, and share their experiences with peers, providing visual role models for other underrepresented students, who may never have thought themselves capable of becoming a scientist or science communicator. An additional project goal is to enhance the capacity and infrastructure of the three ISE partner institutions so that they may receive live broadcasts from the Inner Space Center in the future, beyond the funding period of the project. People, Places & Design Research will conduct the project's front-end and formative evaluation; MEM & Associates will conduct the summative evaluation. Some of the key evaluation questions will be: * Have ISE and MSI institution public visitors, who view either the live broadcasts or the documentary film (or both), become more aware of the changing Arctic ecosystem and the importance of scientific research in the Arctic? * What is the relative impact of the live broadcasts compared to the finished documentary, and the strengths and weakness of the respective media in translating the on-board experience? * Does a real environmental and social context for scientific evidence stimulate audiences to become more interested in the role of science/STEM? * Have students gained leadership skills and the ability to communicate science to their peers? * Have students increased their motivation and interest in pursuing STEM careers? This project is funded by the 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 in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
DATE:
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Gail ScowcroftDavid ClarkBrice LooseDwight Coleman
This award supports the production of a longitudinal video documentary of the evolution of Advanced LIGO and will chronicle the most critical and exciting period in the history of gravitational wave science in the past 100 years. LIGO resumed the search for gravitational waves in 2015 with a newly upgraded detector and on September 14, 2015 detected gravitational waves for the first time, astounding not only the scientific community but the entire world. Using footage captured at critical periods between August 2015 and March 2016 during the discovery phase as well as new filming taking place over the next two years, the team will produce films which will impact at least hundreds of thousands of people and possibly many more than that. The goal is to educate, inspire, and motivate. Students at the high school and undergraduate levels may be more inspired to pursue STEM careers after watching scientific vignettes focusing on the exciting science and technology of Advanced LIGO. Scientific historians and sociologists will have the opportunity to use the hundreds of hours of available film clips as a video database to investigate in detail the discovery of gravitational waves as a case study of large scale collaborations ("Big Science"). Videos highlighting the cutting edge technological advances brought about by Advanced LIGO and their impacts on other fields of science and technology may prove effective for educating officials and policy makers on the benefits of fundamental science.
During the course of the project, a series of professionally made video shorts will be produced for the LIGO Laboratory and LSC for education and public outreach purposes through distribution on LIGO Laboratory, LSC web sites, and the LIGO YouTube Channel. Through an extensive series of film shoots, XPLR Productions will work with the LIGO Laboratory and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) to capture key moments as LIGO scientists work to achieve Advanced LIGO's design sensitivity and carry out a series of observing runs over the next two years. The team will produce a series of video shorts explaining the important scientific and technological concepts and issues of Advanced LIGO by the scientific experts who create them. In the longer term, footage will used to produce either a feature length documentary film or a twelve-part series on television entitled 'LIGO' chronicling the discovery of gravitational waves and the exploration of exotic high-energy astrophysical phenomena such as colliding black holes. Intended for broad distribution through cinema or television, 'LIGO' will bring science to life for a wide audience.
DATE:
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David Reitze
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This project will convene a workshop focused on digital micro-credentials, also known as digital badges, and the role they might play in the high-stakes process of college admission. Digital micro-credentials represent one potential mechanism for broadening access for underrepresented groups to higher education. Digital micro-credentials enable students to present a broader view of themselves as learners that connects different domains of their lives: academic, social, and personal interest-driven. As such, digital micro-credentials enable students to represent expertise and potential in ways that go beyond traditional high school grade point averages and standardized test scores. The workshop addresses questions such as: Can micro-credentials serve as valid and reliable measures of learning? What "gap" in current assessment practices can be filled by micro-credentials? What is required for micro-credentials to be useful as evidence of preparation for future learning in the college admission process?
The project's principal investigators will employ case studies, drawn from the Chicago City of Learning network (chicagocityoflearning.org) and Mouse (mouse.org) in New York City, to better understand the use of micro-credentials for learning in STEM-focused extracurricular activities. During the workshop, participants with expertise in student learning from a range of perspectives will design representations of the knowledge or skills demonstrated by students. Participating admissions officers and STEM faculty will critique the designs with respect to how well the designs demonstrate evidence of preparation for future learning by students. The workshop outcomes will include sample designs of micro-credentials that show promise to both promote learning and support college admissions. The workshop will also result in a white paper discussing the potential of micro-credentials for college admission in STEM fields by youth from underrepresented groups.
DATE:
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Barry FishmanStephanie Teasley
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The purpose of this proposal is to convene scholars at a two-day conference to closely examine validity-related measurement issues, create a guidelines for the field of mathematics education research that addresses key ideas (e.g., validity, validity arguments, evidence for validity and measurement at-scale), and set a clear pathway for scholars to discuss quantitative measurement within mathematics education. Invitees will include a mix of young, older and diverse scholars in mathematics education research. Products include refereed journal articles along with a website.
The workshop will engage the Mathematics Education, Policy, Statistical, Psychometrics and other education research communities in examining and critiquing measurement validity evidence of mathematics education research with the long-term goal of increasing the quality of quantitative inference in mathematics education research (to include improvements in the training of doctoral students).