In fall 2019, the Bell Museum received funding via a NASA TEAM II grant to create Mars: The Ultimate Voyage, a full-dome planetarium show and accompanying hands-on activities that focus on the interdisciplinary roles that will be needed to send humans to Mars. This report from Catalyst Consulting Group presents the findings from the summative evaluation completed in March–May 2023.
Framing: Broadening participation and achieving equitable outcomes has been a core goal of the science museum field for over two decades. However, how to make progress has proven an intractable problem.
Methods: Focusing on five organizations who officially committed to diversity, equity, access, and inclusion (DEAI) by participating in a national professional development program, the researchers investigate how science museums attempt to enact internally-focused change via a mixed methods case study.
Findings: While these organizations considered a variety of structurally focused change
Described by Wohlwend, Peppler, Keune and Thompson (2017) as “a range of activities that blend design and technology, including textile crafts, robotics, electronics, digital fabrication, mechanical repair or creation, tinkering with everyday appliances, digital storytelling, arts and crafts—in short, fabricating with new technologies to create almost anything” (p. 445), making can open new possibilities for applied, interdisciplinary learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Martin, 2015), in ways that decenter and democratize access to ideas, and promote the construction
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jill CastekMichelle Schira HagermanRebecca Woodland
National priorities recommend the U.S. fortify a culture of innovation by encouraging broader participation in invention and STEM. The Game Changers is an Innovations in Development exhibition project with embedded research that advances knowledge about how museum exhibits can activate STEM-related inventive identities among the public. The project is a collaboration between the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American History (NMAH-LC), educational researchers, an exhibition design firm, and community based organizations. While the Game Changers exhibition theme of inventiveness in sports provides an initial spark for broad audience interest and engagement, its ultimate intent is to foster and enhance inventive identity among diverse audiences, particularly girls and young women ages 10-17, African American youth ages 10-17, and people of all ages with disabilities. Visitors will be met by a brief introductory display to launch their journey from passive learner to active inventor. A diverse array of athletes and inventors provide relevant motivational exemplars and ask visitors "How will YOU Change the Game?" Examples of invention challenges include, applying the principles of physics and materials science to aid in designing a safer helmet and exploring computational fluid dynamics to design a faster swimsuit. Throughout the exhibition experience, visitors will draw on an array of STEM skills and knowledge essential to sports, including physiology, kinesiology, and biomechanical engineering, physics, biomimicry, robotics, computer science, data analysis, and virtual and augmented reality. Throughout the project, the team will work with priority audiences, starting with front-end research and evaluation; progressing iteratively through stages of formative research, design, and evaluation; and conducting summative evaluation to ensure that the STEM-based content and design strategies are impacting inventive identity and meeting audiences' interests and needs. In coordination with the exhibition development and evaluation teams, educational researchers will iteratively explore and develop a model for innovative identity development in informal learning environments.
Educational psychologists from Old Dominion University and Temple University will collaborate closely with the NMAH-LC team, exhibition design-fabrication firm Roto, and evaluators from Randi Korn & Associates to adapt a theoretical model of identity from a formal education setting to an informal learning context. In the model, identity is conceptualized as a complex dynamic system, with interdependent internal and external elements (ontological/epistemological beliefs; self-perceptions; purpose and goals; perceived action possibilities) and reciprocal influences in a process of continuous emergence. Using design based research and a previously developed coding manual, the team will iteratively apply, test, and further advance the inventive identity development model, a set of inventive identity indicators for future research and development, and a list of exhibition design techniques for activating inventive, STEM-based identity development in informal learning environments. The research team will prioritize diverse audiences for iterative cycles and focus groups, including participants from the Girl Scouts of the Nation's Capital, Smithsonian Accessibility Program, Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum, and YMCA of Washington, DC. The exhibition's research, evaluation, and design outcomes will be disseminated widely across the AISL field and through project collaborators.
This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning 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.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
Slides from the January 30, 2018 Webinar present information for preparing proposals for the NSF INCLUDES Alliance Solicitation (NSF 18-529). Includes a brief description of NSF INCLUDES, an explanation of Collaborative Change strategies and the NSF INCLUDES 5 elements of collaborative change, proposal recommendations, details on the NSF cooperative agreements and the NSF Merit Review criteria, and provides useful resources.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jolene JessePaige Smith
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The goal of FLIP (Diversifying Future Leadership in the Professoriate), an NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot, is to address the broadening participation challenge of increasing the diversity of the future leadership in the professoriate in computing at research universities as a way to achieve diversity across the field. According to the 2016 CRA Taulbee Survey, only 4.3% of the tenure-track faculty at PhD-granting universities are from underrepresented minorities. This challenge is important to address because diverse faculty contributes to academia in the following critical ways: serve as excellent role models for a diverse study body, bring diverse backgrounds to the student programs and policies developed by the department, and bring diverse perspectives to the research projects and programs. Further, the focus is on research universities, because in practice, key national leadership roles, such as serving on national committees that impact thefield of computing, often come from research universities.
The shared purpose and broad vision of the FLIP launch pilot is to increase faculty diversity in computing at research universities by increasing the diversity of PhD graduates from the top producers of computing faculty. The focus is on four underrepresented groups in computing: African Americans; Hispanics; Native Americans and indigenous peoples; and Persons with Disabilities. The long-term goal is to pursue this vision through strategic partnerships with those institutions that are the top producers of computing faculty and organizations that focus on diverse students in STEM, as well as partnerships that collectively adopt proven strategies for recruiting, graduating, and preparing a diverse set of doctoral students for academic careers. The purpose of the pilot is to establish a unified approach across the different partners that will build upon proven strategies to develop novel practices for increasing the diversity of the PhD graduates from key institutions, thereby increasing the faculty diversity in computing at research universities. For the pilot, FLIP will focus on recruitment and admissions and professional development for current PhD students.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Valerie TaylorCharles IsbellJeffrey ForbesUniversity of Chicago
resourceprojectProfessional Development and Workshops
This is an "Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science" (INCLUDES) Design and Development Launch Pilot that will implement a plan to assess the feasibility of a strategy designed to ensure high levels of improvement in K-12 grade students' mathematics achievement. The plan will focus on an often-neglected group of students--those who have been performing at the lowest quartile on state tests of mathematics, including African American, Hispanic, Native American, students with disabilities, and those segregated in urban and rural communities across the country. The project will draw on lessons learned from the nation's Civil Rights Movement and a community-organizing strategy learned during the struggle to achieve voting rights for African Americans. The Algebra Project (AP) is a national, nonprofit organization that uses mathematics as an organizing tool to ensure quality public school education for every child in America; it believes that every child has a right to a quality education to succeed in this technology-based society. AP's unique approach to school reform intentionally develops sustainable, student-centered models by building coalitions of stakeholders within the local communities, particularly the historically underserved populations. The AP works to change the deeply rooted social attitudes that encourage the disenfranchisement of a third of the nation's population. It delivers a multi-pronged approach to build demand for and support of quality public schools, including research and development, school development, and community development education reform efforts through K-12 initiatives.
The Algebra Project and the Young People's Project (YPP) will join efforts to bring together over 70 individuals and organizations, including 17 universities of which 8 are Historical Black Colleges and Universities, school districts, mathematics educators, and researchers to examine their experiences, and use collective learning to refine and hone strategies that they have piloted and tested to promote mathematics inclusion. The role of YPP in the proposed project will be to organize and facilitate the youth component, such that project activities reflect the language and culture of students, continuously leveraging and building upon their voice, creative input, and ongoing feedback. YPP will conduct workshops for students organized around math-based games that provide collective experiences in which student learning requires individual reflection, small group work, teamwork and discussion. The proposed work will comprise the design of effective learning opportunities; building and supporting a cadre of teachers who can effectively work with students learning under the proposed approach; using technologies to enhance teaching and learning; and utilizing evaluation and research to drive continuous improvement. Because bringing together an effective network with diverse expertise to collaborate towards national impact requires expert facilitation processes, the project will establish working groups around three major principles: (1) Organizing from the bottom up through students, their teachers, and others in local communities committed to their education, allied with individuals and organizations who have expertise and dedication for achieving the stated goals, can produce significant progress and the conditions for collective impact; (2) Effective learning materials and formal and informal learning opportunities in mathematics can be designed and implemented for students performing in the bottom academic quartile; and (3) Teachers and other educators can become more proficient and more confident in their capacity to produce students who are successful in learning the level of mathematics required for full participation in STEM. The working groups will also be tasked to consider two cross-cutting topics: (a) the communication structures and technologies needed to operate and expand the present network, and to create the "backbone" and other structures needed to operate and expand the network; and (b) the measurements and metrics for major needs, such as assessing students' mathematics literacy, socio-emotional development in specified areas; teachers' competencies; as well as the work of the network. The final product of this plan will be a "Theory of Collective Action and Strategic Plan". The plan will contain recommendations for collective actions needed in order for the current network to coordinate, add appropriate partners, develop the needed backbone structures, and become an NSF Alliance for national impact on the broadening participation challenge of improving the mathematics achievement. An external evaluator will conduct both formative and summative aspects of this process.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Robert MosesNell CobbGregory BudzbanMaisha MosesWilliam Crombie
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and programming has become a priority in our nation. In the United States, the STEM pipeline is considered "leaky" as many students disengage from STEM at various points during their lives. In particular, women, Latinos, and African Americans are more likely to disengage from the STEM pipeline. American students are less likely to earn STEM postsecondary and graduate degrees compared to other nations. As careers in STEM fields are expected to increase at a faster rate than other occupations, there is growing concern about the
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Annette ShtivelbandAmanda Wallander RobertsRobert Jakubowski
NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) explores the Earth, the Sun, our solar system, the galaxy and beyond through four SMD divisions: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Planetary Science and Astrophysics. Alongside NASA scientists, teams of education and public outreach (EPO) specialists develop and implement programs and resources that are designed to inspire and educate students, teachers, and the public about NASA science.