Concord Evaluation Group (CEG) conducted an evaluation study to learn about the Future City’s impact on students as well as to discover ways to enhance Future City for future implementation. In addition to exploring the program’s impacts, with this study we also had an opportunity to explore potential differences between students who compete at their Regional competitions only versus students who make it to the National competition. In collaboration with DiscoverE, CEG developed four surveys to collect feedback from students, parents, educators, and engineer mentors. These data collection
National Engineers Week Foundation (EWeek) hired Concord Evaluation Group (CEG) in 2011 to conduct an independent evaluation of the Future City program (http://futurecity.org). Future City has been operating since 1992. According to EWeek, the Future City program is “a national, project-based learning experience where students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade imagine, design, and build cities of the future. Students work as a team with an educator and engineer mentor to plan cities using SimCityTM 4 Deluxe software; research and write solutions to an engineering problem; build tabletop scale models
This article explains the concepts of disruptive innovation and catalytic innovation, a subset of disruptive innovation. Disruptive innovations challenge industry incumbents by offering simpler, good-enough alternatives to an underserved group of customers, whereas catalytic innovations can surpass the status quo by providing good-enough solutions to inadequately addressed social problems.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Clayton ChristensenHeather BaumannRandy RugglesThomas Sadtler
The issue of “scale” is a key challenge for school reform, yet it remains undertheorized in the literature. Definitions of scale have traditionally restricted its scope, focusing on the expanding number of schools reached by a reform. Such definitions mask the complex challenges of reaching out broadly while simultaneously cultivating the depth of change necessary to support and sustain consequential change. This article draws on a review of theoretical and empirical literature on scale, relevant research on reform implementation, and original research to synthesize and articulate a more
In the paper I argue for a certain way of theorizing and studying learning. Learning is seen as situated in social practice, and in the pursuit of most learning persons are seen as moving around in social practice. They are involved in personal trajectories across various social contexts of practice. Even more so, these social contexts and the links between them, which persons learning draw on in their pursuit of learning, are institutionally arranged in various ways, and this affects the opportunities and nature of learning processes. These arguments about the nature of learning, theories of
As interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education grows (Olson & Riordan, 2012), the need for professionals to clearly communicate sophisticated concepts associated with these areas also increases (Fischoff & Scheufele, 2013). This evaluation focuses on a 3 credit university course “Training in Science Education Outreach” which utilizes a novel course structure. The course’s main aim is to teach graduate and undergraduate students how to speak to the public about science, focusing specifically on language science. The structure of the course is non-traditional
This volume explores how technology-supported learning environments can incorporate physical activity and interactive experiences in formal and informal education. It presents cutting-edge research and design work on a new generation of "body-centric" technologies such as wearable body sensors, GPS tracking devices, interactive display surfaces, video game controller devices, and humanlike avatars. Contributors discuss how and why each of these technologies can be used in service of learning within K-12 classrooms and at home, in museums and online. Citing examples of empirical evidence and
The Engineer Your Life (EYL) project is a national initiative to encourage college-bound young women to consider pursuing a degree and a career in engineering. The project aims to communicate to young women the societal value and rewards of being an engineer, rather than the traditional emphasis on the process of becoming an engineer. Target audiences include academically prepared high school girls, career counselors, and professional engineers. Evaluation data were collected in Year 1 and Year 2 of the EYL initiative to assess its impact. We found that young women were especially interested
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Concord Evaluation GroupChristine PaulsenChris BransfieldThea Sahr
The project, called Experimenting With Storytelling, involved working with four schools in East London and Northamptonshire, United Kingdom. Each after school session, with elementary school children and their parents, consisted of a cultural story or folktale (the ‘storytelling’ part) which had some science in it followed by an associated practical activity (the ‘experimenting’ part).
STARBASE Minnesota strives to increase the knowledge, skills, and interest of inner-city elementary school youth in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) for greater academic and lifelong success. This study examines the potential long-term impacts of participation, including interest and engagement in STEM, academic achievement, high school graduation, and college enrollment.
The Chester County intermediate Unit developed strong collaborations between school districts and informal education providers across Pennsylvania to engage thousands of students in high quality learning experiences. NASA will support these partnering institutions as they engage local teachers in professional development in high quality instruction during the school year. Requirements for both summer activities and school year activities necessitates cooperative agreements with secondary education partners to ensure fulfilling participation requirements such as reaching a large number of middle school students and teachers. The CCIU has many potential partners in the PA SoI project who have expressed interest in participating; including Carnegie-Mellon Robotics Academy, Cheyney University, Widener University, the Philadelphia School District, the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the NASTAR flight facility. With a renewed effort by the CCIU the PA Summer of Innovation Program will be implemented through the PAIU NET to provide quality STEM programming to students and STEM training to teachers while monitoring student outcomes. In Eastern PA camps will be held August 1-5 at 36 sites in the 20 participating school districts statewide. In Chester County, camp sites include Gordon Elementary School and Pope John Paul II Regional Catholic School. Additionally several NASA SoI Mini-Camps were held increasing the breath and depth of the program's impact.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Chester County Intermediate UnitJohn Hall
To effectively address problems in education, research must be shaped around a problem of practice. Reorienting research and development in this way must overcome three obstacles. First, the incentive system for university researchers must be changed to reward research on problems of practice. Second, the contexts must be created that will allow the complexity of problems of practice to be understood and addressed by interdisciplinary teams of researchers, practitioners, and education designers. And third, meaningful experimentation must become acceptable in school systems in order to develop