Purpose: This project team will fully develop and test Cyberchase Fractions Quest, a web-based mathematics game for students in grade 3 and 4. Research shows that inadequate understanding of fractions can persist from early grades through higher education, and that success in fractions predicts future success in mathematics and other STEM subjects.
Project Activities: During Phase I (completed in 2016), the team developed a prototype of Cyberchase Fractions Quest, including an interactive number line game with four levels of challenges, and a tool to scaffold learning through hints and provide encouragement as students progress. At the end of Phase I, the research team conducted a pilot study over one week with 60 grade 4 students, half of whom were randomly assigned to use the prototype and half assigned to paper-based fractions activities. Results revealed that the prototype functioned as intended, that students were engaged during gameplay, and that from pre- to post-test, students using the prototype increased significantly in their knowledge of number line problems compared to the control group. In Phase II, the team will finalize the design, artwork, and animation, the formative and summative assessment component, and learning management system. After development is complete, the researchers will carry out a pilot study to assess the usability and feasibility, fidelity of implementation, and promise of the game to improve student learning of fractions over a 5-week period. The study will include four classrooms of grade 3 students, two of which will be randomly assigned, to use the games to supplement in-class lessons while the others will use paper-based activities. The researchers will compare pre-and-post scores for student learning of fractions. The study will also track teacher implementation.
Product: The final product is Cyberchase Fractions Quest—a math game based on the storyline of PBS children's television series, Cyberchase. In the game, students in grades 3 and 4 will apply learning fractions within three contexts: areas and regions (such as shapes), sets (groups of objects), and on a number line. The game will identify specific areas where students struggle and will introduce challenges to support individualized learning. Similar to other popular game apps, student will receive immediate feedback from one to three stars based on how well they perform on each challenge as well as in-game rewards as they progress toward mastery. The game will include teacher resources for classroom implementation, and an educator dashboard presenting results.
This project will advance efforts of the innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by producing empirical findings and/or research tools that contribute to knowledge about which models and interventions with K-12 students and teachers are most likely to increase capacity in the STEM and STEM cognate intensive workforce of the future.
The project will build a path to further research on best practices for Native American youth education. It will enhance the existing Indigenous Arts and Sciences (IAS) project by addressing cultural perspectives of Native students and educators. The approach describes the need to include ecological relevance in STEM learning for Native American youth, with an integration of Western science with Native knowledge, process, and core values, which will give a positive impact on Native American youth's interest in and learning of science. The project will deliver a culturally relevant stewardship-based education model applying science to indigenous knowledge and community culture connections in collaboration with four tribal communities in Wisconsin. Informal science education will come through the Earth Partnership (EP) and will involve participants in habitat restoration and stewardship as a context for intergenerational science learning across age, discipline, culture and place. EP Indigenous Arts and Sciences (IAS) integrates Western science with Native knowledge, process, and core values including relationship, reciprocity, respect and responsibility.
The project will convene the expertise of elders and community members from Red Cliff, Bad River, Lac du Flambeau, and Ho-Chunk Nations with university social, physical, and life scientists to expand informal science learning incorporating ecological protection and restoration, citizen science, and cultural diversity. STEM learning and career pathways for underrepresented groups will occur in an informal and culturally relevant contexts becoming important for enhancing ecological and STEM literacy, efficacy and civic engagement. IAS will engage students, educators, elders, informal educators, natural resource professionals, and parents in community dialogues and relationship building, informal-formal professional development collaborations, and indigenized STEM learning experiences and mentoring for students in grades 8-12. The science content will be explored through technology-enhanced, project-based learning in real-life contexts integrating culture in classroom and informal settings. This project is based on a growing body of research on Indigenous wisdom that reconnects Native youth and the broader community with the environment. The project occurs broadly at the intersection of science learning, environmental justice, ecological restoration, tribal history, and culture at a crucial time of global climate and social change. IAS will use this project-based learning model to advance the knowledge of how and why indigenizing informal science learning through a collaborative effort including elders, families, youth, formal and informal educators will revitalize culture, community and education.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Cheryl Bauer-ArmstrongNaomi TillisonMichelle CloudDelores Gokee-RindalBrian Gauthier
Co-led by the University of Washington and Science Gallery Dublin, this project aims to drive and transform the next generation of broadening participation efforts targeting teen-aged youth from communities historically underrepresented in STEM fields. This project investigates how out-of-school time (OST) programs that integrate epistemic practices of the arts, sciences, computer science, and other disciplines, in the context of consequential activities (such as creating radio segments, designing museum exhibitions, or building online games), can more broadly appeal to and engage youth who do not already identify as STEM learners. STEM-related skills and capacities (such as computational thinking, design, data visualizations, and digital storytelling) are key to productive and creative participation in many future civic and workplace activities, and are driving the 30 fastest-growing occupations in the US. But many new jobs will entail a hybrid blend of skills, such as programming and design skills that many students who have disengaged with academic STEM pathways may already have and would be eager to develop further. There is not currently a strong foundation of research-based evidence to guide the design, implementation, and evaluation transdisciplinary programs - in which STEM skills are embedded as tools for meaningful participation - or how such approaches relate to long-term outcomes. Hypothesizing that OST programs which effectively engage youth during their high-leverage teenage years can significantly impact youths' longer-term STEM learning trajectories, this project will involve: 1) Five 3-year studies documenting learning in different technology-rich contexts: Making Afterschool, Media Production, Museum Exhibition Design, Digital Arts Programs, and Pop-Up/Street Science Programs; 2) A 4-year longitudinal study, involving 100 youth from the above programs; 3) The creation of a number of practical measurement tools that can be used to monitor how programs are leveraging the intersections of the arts and sciences to support student engagement and learning; and 4) A Professional Development program conducted at informal science education conferences in the EU and US to engage the informal STEM field with emerging findings. This project is funded through Science Learning+, which is an international partnership between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Wellcome Trust with the UK Economic and Social Research Council. The goal of this joint funding effort is to make transformational steps toward improving the knowledge base and practices of informal STEM experiences to better understand, strengthen, and coordinate STEM engagement and learning. Within NSF, Science Learning+ is part of the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program that seeks to enhance learning in informal environments.
Transdisciplinary, equity-oriented OST programs can provide supportive social contexts in which STEM concepts and practices are taken up as the means for meaningful participation in valued activities, building students' STEM skills in ways that can propel their future academic, career, and lifelong learning choices. This project will build the knowledge base about these emerging 21st century transdisciplinary approaches to broadening participation investigating: 1) The epistemic intersections across a range of disciplines (art, science, computation, design) that operate to broaden appeal and meaningful participation for underrepresented youth; 2) How transdisciplinary activities undertaken in the context of consequential learning (e.g., producing a radio segment, designing an exhibition for the general public) can illuminate the relevance of STEM to young people's lives, concerns, and futures; and 3) How participation in such programs can propel students' longer-term life choices and STEM learning trajectories. The project is a collaboration of the University of Washington, Science Gallery Dublin, Indiana University, Youth Radio in Oakland California, Guerilla Science in New York and London, and the London School of Economics.
Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR), often referred to as crowdsourcing or citizen science, engages participants in authentic research, which both advances science discovery as well as increases the potential for participants' understanding and use of science in their lives and careers. This four year research project examines youth participation in PPSR projects that are facilitated by Natural History Museums (NHMs). NHMs, like PPSR, have a dual focus on scientific research and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. The NHMs in this project have established in-person and online PPSR programs and have close ties with local urban community-based organizations. Together, these traits make NHMs appropriate informal learning settings to study how young people participate in PPSR and what they learn. This study focuses on three types of PPSR experiences: short-term outdoor events like bioblitzes, long-term outdoor environmental monitoring projects, and online PPSR projects such as crowdsourcing the ID of field observations. The findings of this study will be shared through PPSR networks as well as throughout the field in informal STEM learning in order to strength youth programming in STEM, such that youth are empowered to engage in STEM research and activities in their communities. This project is funded through Science Learning+, which is an international partnership between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Wellcome Trust with the UK Economic and Social Research Council. The goal of this joint funding effort is to make transformational steps toward improving the knowledge base and practices of informal STEM experiences. Within NSF, Science Learning+ is part of the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program that seeks to enhance learning in informal environments and to broaden access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences.
The study employs observations, surveys, interviews, and learning analytics to explore three overarching questions about youth learning: 1) What is the nature of the learning environments and what activities do youth engage in when participating in NHM-led PPSR? 2) To what extent do youth develop three science learning outcomes, through participation in NHM-led citizen science programs? The three are: a) An understanding of the science content, b) identification of roles for themselves in the practice of science, and c) a sense of agency for taking actions using science? 3) What program features and settings in NHM-led PPSR foster these three science learning outcomes among youth? Based on studies occurring at multiple NHMs in the US and the UK, the broader impact of this study includes providing research-based recommendations for NHM practitioners that will help make PPSR projects and learning science more accessible and productive for youth. This project is collaboration between education researchers at University of California, Davis and Open University (UK), and Oxford University (UK) and citizen science practitioners, educators, and environmental scientists at three NHMs in the US and UK: NHM London, California Academy of Sciences, and NHM Los Angeles.
Science researchers and practitioners are often challenged by how best to assess the effectiveness of science activities on young children whose language skills are still emerging. Yet, research has demonstrated the critical importance of early learning on individual potential. Building on evidence that movement is tightly intertwined with thinking, this project will investigate how thought and movement link as embodied learning to accelerate science understanding. Research will be conducted in the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) with the aim to gather evidence for embodied interactions during science learning and articulate design principles about how museum exhibits can most effectively encourage cognitive and physical engagement with science. Such guidelines are largely absent in the field of informal STEM learning, and so this project seeks transformational change in how learning is understood and recognizes that changes in knowledge can be developed and revealed through body-based movements as well as verbally. Such a view is critically important given that many early learners communicate understanding through nonverbal channels before verbal. Research will be conducted with a diverse population of children and will explore the application of embodied learning to communities that are underrepresented in STEM. This project is funded through Science Learning+, which is an international partnership between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Wellcome Trust with the UK Economic and Social Research Council. The goal of this joint funding effort is to make transformational steps toward improving the knowledge base and practices of informal STEM experiences. Within NSF, Science Learning+ is part of the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program that seeks to enhance learning in informal environments and to broaden access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences. During a 3-year period, researcher-practitioner teams across six museum sites will collaboratively investigate the links between movement and learning outcomes at selected science exhibits designed for young learners. Research activities will involve iteration and refinement of new instruments and protocols, through analysis of observed and automated capture of interaction data, and synthesis and interpretation of data. A design-based research methodology will be applied to address three key questions: 1) What elements of sensory and action experiences are key to informing the design of exhibits that aim to exploit embodied interactions for learning; 2) What is the role of bodily enactment /gestures in assessing children's understanding of science concepts; and 3) What cultural differences in kinds of embodied engagement emerge across diverse museum settings? Video and audio data of 400 children's exhibit interactions will be collected. Pre/post semi-structured interviews will be conducted with a subset of these participants and will focus on children's understanding of relevant science concepts as well as personal reflections on their physical and emotional experience engaging with the exhibit. This project would raise awareness of embodied approaches to learning as well as build stronger collaborations between informal STEM educators and cognitive researchers. Utilization of informal and formal dissemination networks will support wide diffusion of project outcomes. This is critically important given strong evidence pointing to the impact of preschool education in underserved populations, and ongoing national efforts by the US and UK to improve the quality of STEM learning in preschool contexts.
Project partners supported by NSF funding include The Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, andSciencenter (Ithaca).
Partners supported by the Wellcome Trust include University of Edinburgh, University College London, Glasgow Science Centre, Science Museum London, and Learning through Landscapes.
One way to encourage youth to pursue training in the STEM fields and enter the STEM workforce is to foster interest and engagement in STEM during adolescence. Informal STEM Learning Sites (ISLS) provide opportunities for building interest and engagement in the STEM fields through a multitude of avenues, including the programming that they provide for youth, particularly teens. Frequently, ISLS provide opportunities to participate in volunteer programs, internships or work, which allow teens both to learn relevant STEM knowledge as well as to share that knowledge with others through opportunities to serve as youth educators. While youth educator programs provide rich contexts for teens to engage as both learners and teachers in these informal STEM environments, research to date has not yet identified the relationship between serving as youth educators and STEM engagement. Thus, the goal of this project is to document the impact of youth educators on visitor learning in ISLS and to identify best practices for implementing youth educator programs. The project studies STEM interests and engagement in the youth participants and the visitors that they interact with at six different ISLS in the US and UK. This project is funded through Science Learning+, which is an international partnership between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Wellcome Trust with the UK Economic and Social Research Council. The goal of this joint funding effort is to make transformational steps toward improving the knowledge base and practices of informal STEM experiences. Within NSF, Science Learning+ is part of the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program that seeks to enhance learning in informal environments and to broaden access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences.
This project examines youth educator experiences related to STEM identity, educational aspirations, and motivation. The project also identifies outcomes that the youth educators have on visitors to ISLS in terms of knowledge, interest, and engagement in STEM. The specific aims are: 1) Outcomes for Teens - To measure the longitudinal impact of participation in an extended youth educator experience in an ISLS; 2) Outcomes for Visitors - To compare visitor engagement with and learning from exhibits in ISLS when they interact with a youth educator, relative to outcomes of interacting with an adult educator or no educator; and 3) Outcomes Across Demographics and STEM Sites - To examine differences in visitor engagement based on participant characteristics such as socio-economic status (SES), age, gender, and ethnicity and to compare outcomes of youth educator experiences across different types of ISLS. This research, which draws on expectancy value theory and social cognitive theory, will follow youth participants longitudinally over the course of 5 years and use latent variable analyses to understand the impact on the youth educators as well as the visitors with whom they interact. Importantly, the results of this research will be used to develop best practices for implementing youth educator programs in ISLS and the results will be disseminated to both academic and practice-based communities.
This project has clear and measurable broader impacts in a variety of ways. First, the project provides guidance to improve programming for youth in ISLS, including both the sites involved directly in the research and to the larger community of ISLS through evaluation, development, and dissemination of best practices. Additionally, this project provides rigorous, research-based evidence to identify and describe the outcomes of youth educator programs. This study directly benefits the participants of the research, both the visiting public and the youth educators, through opportunities to engage with science. The findings speak to issues of access and inclusivity in ISLS, providing insight into how to design environments that are welcoming and accessible for diverse groups of learners. Finally, this project provides evidence for best practices for ISLS in developing programs for youth that will lead to interest in and pursuit of STEM careers by members of underrepresented groups.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Adam Hartstone-RoseMatthew IrvinKelly Lynn MulveyElizabeth ClemensLauren ShenfeldAdam RutlandMark WinterbottomFrances BalkwillPeter McOwanKatie ChambersStephanie TylerLisa Stallard
This 4-year project addresses fundamental equity issues in informal Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning. Access to, and opportunities within informal STEM learning (ISL) remain limited for youth from historically underrepresented backgrounds in both the United States and the United Kingdom. However, there is evidence that ISL experiences can expand opportunities for youth learning and development in STEM, for instance, increase positive attitudes towards educational aspirations and future careers/pursuits, improve grades and test scores in school settings, and decrease disciplinary action and dropout rates. Through research and development, this project brings together researchers and practitioners to focus on the experiences, practices and tools that will support equitable youth pathways into STEM. Working across conceptual frameworks and ISL settings (e.g. science centers, community groups, zoos) and universities in four urban contexts in two different nations, the partnership will produce a coherent knowledge base that strengthens and expands research plus practice partnerships, builds capacity towards transformative research and development, and develops new models and tools in support of equitable pathways into STEM at a global level. This project is funded through Science Learning+, which is an international partnership between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Wellcome Trust with the UK Economic and Social Research Council. The goal of this joint funding effort is to make transformational steps toward improving the knowledge base and practices of informal STEM experiences. Within NSF, Science Learning+ is part of the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program that seeks to enhance learning in informal environments and to broaden access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences. This Equity Pathways project responds to three challenges at the intersections of ISL research and practice in the United States and the United Kingdom: 1) lack of shared understanding of how youth from historically underrepresented backgrounds perceive and experience ISL opportunities across national contexts, and the practices and tools needed to support empowered movement through ISL; 2) limited shared understanding and evidence of core high-leverage practices that support such youth in progressing within and across ISL, and 3) limited understanding of how ISL might be equitable and transformative for such youth seeking to develop their own pathways into STEM. The major goal of this Partnership is for practitioners and researchers, working with youth through design-based implementation research, survey and critical ethnography, to develop new understandings of how and under what conditions they participate in ISL over time and across settings, and how they may connect these experiences towards pathways into STEM. The project will result in: 1) New understandings of ISL pathways that are equitable and transformative for youth from historically underrepresented backgrounds; 2) A set of high leverage practices and tools that support equitable and transformative informal science learning pathways (and the agency youth need to make their way through them); and 3) Strengthened and increased professional capacity to broaden participation among youth from historically underrepresented backgrounds in STEM through informal science learning. The project will be carried out by research + practice partnerships in 4 cities: London & Bristol, UK and Lansing, MI & Portland, OR, US, involving university researchers (University College London, Michigan State University, Oregon State University/Institute for Learning Innovation) practitioners in science museums (@Bristol Science Centre, Brent Lodge Park Animal Centre, Impressions 5, Oregon Museum of Science & Industry) and community-based centers (STEMettes, Knowle West Media Centre, Boys & Girls Clubs of Lansing, and Girls, Inc. of the Pacific Northwest).
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Climate Change Education Partnership Alliance (CCEPA) is a consortium made up of the six Phase II Climate Change Education Partnership (CCEP-II) program awardees funded in FY 2012. Collectively, the CCEPA is establishing a coordinated network devoted to increasing the adoption of effective, high quality educational programs and resources related to the science of climate change and its potential impacts. The establishment of a CCEPA Coordination Office addresses the need for a coordinating body that leverages and builds upon the CCEPA projects' individual initiatives. The CCEPA Coordination Office facilitates interactions to leverage a successful network of CCEP-II projects and individuals engaged in increasing climate science literacy. The efforts of the Coordination Office advance knowledge and understanding of how to effectively network related, but different, projects into a cohesive enterprise. The goal is to coordinate a functional network, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
The CCEPA Coordination Office at the University of Rhode Island is helping to move the CCEPA network forward on a number of key initiatives that strengthen it, reduce duplication, and enhance its overall impact. An important role of the Coordination Office is the facilitation of the transfer of best practices between projects. An effective network forges collaborations and establishes communities of practice through network working groups, building intellectual capital network-wide. The CCEPA Coordination Office has a key role in assisting the CCEPA project PIs and staff to disseminate the results of their work. Partnerships with other relevant societies and organizations assist the Coordination Office in identifying opportunities and synergies for sharing, disseminating, and leveraging network products as well as best practices that emerge as Earth system science education models and tools are evaluated. This endeavor broadens the collective impact of the individual projects across the country.
This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by producing empirical findings and/or research tools that contribute to knowledge about which models and interventions with K-12 students and teachers are most likely to increase capacity in the STEM and STEM cognate intensive workforce of the future.
The LinCT (Linking Educators, Youth, and Learners in Computational Thinking) project at the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) will engage female teachers-in-training and youth from underrepresented demographics in immersive technology experiences and STEM education. LinCT will guide teachers to develop their understanding and use of technology in the classroom, as well as prepare youth for a future where technology plays a key role in a wide range of professional opportunities. The project aims to inspire teachers and youth to see the possibilities of technological competencies, as well as why the incorporation of technology can build meaningful learning experiences and opportunities for all learners. The LinCT program model offers learning and application experiences for participating teachers and youth and provides an introduction of technological tools used in SMM educational programs and professional development on approaches for engaging all learners in STEM. Both groups will provide instruction in SMM technology-based Summer Camps, reaching 1,000 young people every year. In each following school year, project educators will develop and deliver technology-based programs to nearly 1,000 under-served and underrepresented elementary students. The project will allow teachers and youth to deliver exciting and engaging technology-based programs to nearly 4,000 diverse young learners. As a result, all participants in this project will be better equipped to incorporate technology in their future careers.
The LinCT project will investigate effective approaches for broadening the participation of underrepresented populations by providing female pre-service teachers and female youth with opportunities to lead programming at the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM). Over three years, the LinCT project will employ 8-12 female teachers-in-training [Teacher Tech Cadres (TTC)] and 12-24 female youth [Youth Teaching Tech Crews (Y-TTC)] from demographics that are underrepresented in STEM fields. The integration of these groups will result in relationships fostered within an educational program, where all participants are learners and teachers, mentors and mentees. The results of this unique program model will be assessed through the experiences of this focused professional learning and teaching community. The LinCT research study will focus on three aspects of the project. First, it will seek to understand how the teachers-in-training and youth experience the project model's varied learning environments. Next, the study will explore how the TTC's and the Y-TTC's motivation, confidence, and self-efficacy with integrating technology across educational settings change because of the program. Finally, the study will seek to understand the lasting aspects of culture, training, and community building on SMM's internal teams and LinCT partner institutions (University of St. Catherine's National Center for STEM Elementary Education and Metropolitan State University's School of Urban Education).
The primary goal of the STEM Evaluation Community project is to increase the capacity of evaluators to produce high quality, conceptually sound, methodologically appropriate evaluations of NSF programs and projects. The project will contribute to the exploration of innovative new approaches for determining the impact of NSF programs and projects, promote the usefulness of NSF program and project evaluations, and help to expand the theoretical foundations for evaluating STEM education, workforce, and outreach initiatives. The STEM Evaluation Community will serve as a focal point for evaluation capacity building with and across the NSF programs that fund STEM education, workforce and outreach activities, bringing people and ideas together, facilitating dialogue, sharing resources, offering opportunities for dissemination and more. The resulting connected system of evaluators will promote social innovation through a lively, dynamic evaluation professional community in which NSF program and project evaluators will share their work, learn from each other, and, ultimately, leverage and enhance the existing evaluation capacity building infrastructure that has been developed for specific NSF programs and audiences, thus charting a course to build further evaluation capacity across NSF.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Iowa State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Texas at El Paso, Michigan State University, University of Georgia and University of California, Los Angeles will lead this Design and Development Launch Pilot to build the foundation for a national alliance that will prepare a new national STEM faculty, spanning all of post-secondary education, able to use evidence-based teaching, mentoring and advising practices that yield greater learning, persistence and completion of women and historically underrepresented minorities (URM) undergraduates in STEM. This project was created by this group of institutions, who are members of the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL), in response to the Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (NSF INCLUDES) program solicitation (NSF 16-544). The INCLUDES program is a comprehensive national initiative designed to enhance U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) discoveries and innovations focused on NSF's commitment to diversity, inclusion, and broadening participation in these fields. The INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilots represent bold, innovative ways for solving a broadening participation challenge in STEM.
The full participation of all of America's STEM talent is critical to the advancement of science and engineering for national security, health and prosperity. Our nation is advancing knowledge and practices to address a STEM achievement and the graduation gap between undergraduate STEM students who are women and men, and between those who are URMs and non-URMs. At the same time U.S. universities and colleges struggle to recruit, retain and promote a diverse STEM graduate student body, and a diverse STEM faculty, who serve as role models and academic leaders for URM and female students to learn from, to work with and to emulate. This project, the CIRTL INCLUDES - Toward an Alliance to Prepare a National Faculty for Broadening Success of Underrepresented 2-Year and 4-Year STEM Students, has the potential to advance a national network of organizations to improve the success of future STEM faculty who will educate a diverse undergraduate body and contribute to the learning, retention and graduation of women and URMs in STEM fields.
The collaborating CIRTL universities will work closely with multiple organizations to address key goals, including Achieving the Dream, Advanced Technological Education Central, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Mathematical Society of Two-Year Colleges, the American Physical Society, the American Society for Engineering Education, the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, the Council of Graduate Schools, the Council for the Study of Community Colleges, Excelencia in Education, the Infrastructure for Broadening Participation in STEM, the Louis Stokes Midwest Center for Excellence, the Math Alliance, the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, the National Research Mentoring Network, the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Science Education, the Southern Regional Education Board, the Summer Institutes on Scientific Teaching, and the Women in Engineering Programs and Advocates Network. Together, this extensive collaborative network will three goals: (1) To deepen the preparation of future STEM faculty in teaching, mentoring and advising practices that promote the success of undergraduates who are women and URMs; (2) To expand and strengthen faculty preparation specifically for 2-year colleges; and (3) To target the preparation of future STEM faculty who are members of underrepresented groups for effective teaching and mentoring, contributing to their early-career success. The seven universities who are partnering to lead this project will work to: (1) Form active partnerships and national coalitions for each of the three goals; (2) Employ a collective impact framework for each goal team and the entire alliance, ensuring common agendas, shared metrics, mutually reinforcing activities and an integrated process using data improvement cycles; and (3) Achieve pilot outcomes that position the alliance for future work.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Robert MathieuRenetta TullKatherine BarnicleCraig OgilvieLeslie GonzalesErin SandersJudy MiltonMary Besterfield-SacreBenjamin FloresOcegueda Isela
Mathematics is the foundation of many STEM fields and success in mathematics is a catalyst for success in other scientific disciplines. Increasing the participation of women and other under-represented groups in the mathematics profession builds human capital that produces a diverse pool of problem solvers in business and industry, research mathematicians, faculty at all levels, and role models for the next generation. Existing support and enrichment programs have targeted women in mathematics at different stages in their undergraduate and graduate education, with different strategies to building community, creating a sense of belonging, and promoting a growth mind set. These strategies challenge some of the most common obstacles to success, including isolation, stereotype threat, not committing to mathematics early enough, and imposter syndrome. Acknowledging the diversity among women in terms of socio-economic background and educational background, this project proposes to examine the effectiveness of these programs through the lens of two primary questions: (1) Which elements of these programs are most critical in the success of women, as a function of their position along these distinct diversity axes?, and (2) which features of these programs are most effective as a function of the stage of the participant's career? These questions are guided by the rationale that a better understanding of, and improved pathways by, which programs recruit and retain undergraduate and graduate women in mathematics has the strong potential to increase the representation of women among mathematics PhDs nationwide.
This project seeks to increase and diversify the number of professional mathematicians in the United States by identifying and proliferating best practices and known mechanisms for increasing the success of women in mathematics graduate programs, particularly women from under-represented groups. The PIs on this proposal, all of whom are leaders of initiatives that have been active for nearly two decades, will work with experts in management, data collection and reporting, and communications to address the following three challenges: (1) develop a common system of measuring the effectiveness of each element in these initiatives; (2) develop a process for effective, collective decision making; and (3) create connections between existing activities and resources. This project is both exploratory research and effectiveness research. The project team first will explore the contextual factors that serve to support or inhibit female pursuit of mathematics doctorates by interviewing a variety of women who were undergraduate mathematics majors in the past, as well as current professional mathematicians. They then will use this information to better understand the most effective features of various current and past initiatives that are trying to increase the participation of women in advanced mathematics. A key stakeholder meeting will develop a process for effective, collective decision-making, to utilize what the project team learns from the interviews. The leadership team will develop a website with discussion board and social media components to highlight best practices and facilitate a virtual community for women interested in mathematics. Finally, a distillation of program elements and their targeted effectiveness will inform the selection of interconnected activities to test on a scalable model. These prototypes will be implemented at several sites chosen to represent a diversity of constituencies and local support infrastructure.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Judy WalkerAmi RadunskayaRuth HaasDeanna Haunsperger