The pilot test for Changemakers: Advancing Community Science Literacy was a capacity building program integrating strategic discourse & community change theory that identified a new path for advancing community STEM literacies. The results of experiment established partnerships with locally based non-profits, and a collaborative effort to address environmental justice and social disparities in areas threatened by climate change.
The evaluation was underaken with instruments developed for multiple research projects to support cross-project comparative analysis.
This instrumemts presented
The pilot test of a capacity building program integrating strategic discourse & community change theory identified a new path for advancing community STEM literacies. The results of experiment established partnerships with locally based non-profits working to address environmental justice and social disparities in areas threatened by climate change identified five recommendations to reset the role of ISLC’s as more relevant to the communities: 1) Allocate Time to Build Relationships; 2) Develop a Shared Definition of Resilience; 3) Situate Community Aspirations as Context for STEM Learning; 4)
This book is a deliverable (requisite) of an NSF (National Science Foundation) grant to share the project outcomes and what we learned from the NSF grant project. This four-year NSF project was funded to provide professional development to museum educators about Indigenous Knowledge and Western Science in museums, with the goal of providing a culturally relevant way for Indigenous communities to connect to science. The name of this grant was “Cosmic Serpent: Bridging Native Ways of Knowing and Western Science in Museum Settings.”
This book is also a snapshot in time of this work in
This report presents highlights from a Fall 2020 evaluation conducted with 69 STEAM teachers from across the U.S., all of whom are part of the National Air and Space Museum's Teacher Innovator Institute (TII). Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on classrooms and the museum's teacher PD program, the evaluation in Fall 2020 focused on understanding the conditions, adaptations, challenges, and success stories of this population of teachers from across the country. The findings in this report provide insight into the variations in teaching conditions (depending on geography and urbanity
The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the Research+Practice Collaboratory in 2012 to develop strategies for (1) making educational research more usable for educators, and (2) helping educators and researchers productively collaborate to advance research on educational effectiveness.
The Collaboratory comprised four partnering teams. Three of these teams were researchpractice partnerships (RPPs) that functioned as demonstration sites or “local labs.” Together, they pursued a shared commitment to improving quality and equity in STEM education while respectively, they selected different
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Kea AndersonTim PodkulCorinne SingletonCynthia D'Angelo
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The University of Washington, the Exploratorium, the Education Development Center, Inverness Research, and the University of Colorado - Boulder have come together to form a Research+Practice (R+P) Collaboratory. The Collaboratory seeks to address and reframe the gap between research and practice in K-12 STEM education. This gap persists despite decades of work by many leading organizations, associations, and individuals. Attempts to close the gap have generally focused on creating resources and mechanisms that first explain or illustrate "what research says" and then invite educators to access and integrate findings into practice. Recently, however, attention has turned to the ways in which the medical sciences are addressing the gap between research and clinical practice through the developing field of "translational research." In medicine, the strategy has been to shift the focus from adoption to adaptation of research into practice. Implicit in the notion of adaptation is a bi-directional process of cultural exchange in which both researchers and practitioners come to understand how the knowledge products of each field can strengthen the professional activities in the other. Along these lines, the R+P Collaboratory is working with leading professional associations and STEM improvement efforts to leverage their existing knowledge and experience and to build sustainable strategies for closing the gap. Activities include:
Collecting, creating and synthesizing translational research resources to expand STEM educators' and educational leaders' access and awareness to current relevant research.
Supporting multiple opportunities for cross-sector (research and practice; education and social sciences; formal and informal) meetings to foster critical engagement and cultural exchange.
Testing, documenting and innovating new resources and mechanisms at Adaptation Sites and disseminating both products and results through the R+P Resource Center.
The R+P Collaboratory is developing an online 'Go-To' Resource Center website that houses the resources collected, created, and curated by the Collaboratory. The Resource Center also has significant 'Take-Out' features, with all materials meta-tagged so that they can be automatically uploaded, reformatted, and integrated into the existing communication and professional development mechanisms (e.g., newsletters, digests, conferences, and websites) of a dozen leading professional associations within a Professional Association Partner Network.
In light of new and emerging standards in the STEM disciplines, the Collaboratory is focusing its work on four salient and timely bodies of research: (a) STEM Practices, (b) Formative Assessment, (c) Cyberlearning, and (d) Learning as a Cross-Setting Phenomenon. Special emphasis is being placed on research and practice that focuses on the learning of children and youth from communities historically underrepresented in STEM fields.
The work of the R+P Collaboratory includes research and evaluation of its own efforts through studies aimed at answering the following questions:
How are Collaboratory resources and engagement activities accessed, experienced and leveraged by participants?
What resources, mechanisms and learning contexts support cultural exchange among STEM education researchers and practitioners?
What new kinds of practices result when research-based evidence is adapted into evidence-based practices, and how does it change learning opportunities for K-12 aged children?
How can effective strategies, mechanisms and resources of the Collaboratory be scaled and adapted to new contexts?
The One Sky Institute (One Sky) was an NSF-funded Exploratory Pathways project aimed at developing a new strategy to broaden participation in informal science education. The program emerged from the current need to expand professional development to help increase and support a more diverse cadre of leaders in ISE. One Sky tested professional learning design strategies for mentoring program participants and engaging them in research and practice by developing equity-focused projects at their home institutions in order to: 1) build new knowledge about broadening participation and the barriers
The attached evaluation is of the A2A (Awareness to Action) Planning Workshop held February 21-23 in two locations simultaneously connected by internet: the University of Colorado, Boulder and Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. It was made possible thanks to a collaboration of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) and EcoArts Connections, with additional assistance from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. A2A brought together 39 natural and social scientists, artists, urban planners, “sustainablists” (e.g. sustainability professionals working in a variety
The attached Briefing Booklet was created collaboratively by A2A (Awareness to Action) Planning Workshop facilitators and organizers in advance of the February 2018 convening and was available to participants.
The workshop's primary goal was to establish an operational strategy for knowledge sharing across entities, networks, and associations designed to strengthen communities of practice nationally to better conceive, conduct, and evaluate projects for the public, working at the intersection of science, arts, and sustainability.
The booklet contains an overview of the workshop purpose
From 2018 to 2020, the Emerging Research on Identity, Representation & Inclusion in Museums project team set out to document graduate-level research on identity in the museum field, and support professionals’ ongoing research and publishing on these topics. Researchers at Knology synthesized over 90 graduate student theses about identity and museums from 2000 to 2018. In parallel, we interviewed a sample of the authors whose work appeared in the literature review, to understand how identity research has played a role in their careers. To support new and ongoing identity research, we hosted a
Diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI) have become central concerns for museums. Across the field, leaders are asking—with increasing urgency—how museums can diversify their visitors, staff, and boards; create welcoming and inclusive environments and workplaces; and ensure that museum offerings reflect a broad range of interests, experiences, and needs.
Museums have approached DEAI efforts in different ways and at different levels, from developing special exhibits and events for specific audiences to offering staff diversity training to board development. Despite more than
The Equity Compass helps to identify how and why particular examples of practice may be more or less equitable. By mapping your practice, the compass can help support planning for improvements in equitable practice. By attending to each of the segments, the Equity Compass helps practitioners to identify ways to support young people’s critical STEM agency. STEM agency is the capacity for young people, particularly those from underserved communities, to use STEM to take action in their lives on issues that are meaningful to them and which help challenge societal injustices.