The Springfield Science Museum will increase participation in informal science learning by making its educational programs and learning spaces more accessible and inclusive. Museum staff will undergo Disability Inclusion and Universal Design training to redesign and enhance a core multi-use learning space and principle STEM program that can remove physical, cognitive, and social barriers to learning. External evaluators will measure access needs and learning outcomes before and after project upgrades in order to track progress and develop a scalable model of inclusive practice for all the museum’s science programming. The result will be an improved educational experience for visitors of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds.
This book chapter, which describes emotional accessibility in digital learning experiences and its relation to Universal Design, was included in the book "Inclusive Digital Interactives: Best Practices + Research" published by the Smithsonian. This chapter includes a description of the Productive Struggle project, data highlights, and information on how attending to emotions can broaden our concepts of accessibility.
Virtual Reality (VR) shows promise to broaden participation in STEM by engaging learners in authentic but otherwise inaccessible learning experiences. The immersion in authentic learner environments, along with social presence and learner agency, that is enabled by VR helps form memorable learning experiences. VR is emerging as a promising tool for children with autism. While there is wide variation in the way people with autism present, one common set of needs associated with autism that can be addressed with VR is sensory processing. This project will research and model how VR can be used to minimize barriers for learners with autism, while also incorporating complementary universal designs for learning (UDL) principles to promote broad participation in STEM learning. As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of settings. This project will build on a prototype VR simulation, Mission to Europa Prime, that transports learners to a space station for exploration on Jupiter's moon Europa, a strong candidate for future discovery of extraterrestrial life and a location no human can currently experience in person. The prototype simulation will be expanded to create a full, immersive STEM-based experience that will enable learners who often encounter cognitive, social, and emotional barriers to STEM learning in public spaces, particularly learners with autism, to fully engage and benefit from this STEM-learning experience. The simulation will include a variety of STEM-learning puzzles, addressing science, mathematics, engineering, and computational thinking through authentic and interesting problem-solving tasks. The project team's learning designers and researchers will co-design puzzles and user interfaces with students at a post-secondary institute for learners with autism and other learning differences. The full VR STEM-learning simulation will be broadly disseminated to museums and other informal education programs, and distributed to other communities.
Project research is designed to advance knowledge about VR-based informal STEM learning and the affordances of VR to support learners with autism. To broaden STEM participation for all, the project brings together research at the intersection of STEM learning, cognitive and educational neuroscience, and the human-technology frontier. The simulation will be designed to provide agency for learners to adjust a STEM-learning VR experience for their unique sensory processing, attention, and social anxiety needs. The project will use a participatory design process will ensure the VR experience is designed to reduce barriers that currently exclude learners with autism and related conditions from many informal learning opportunities, broadening participation in informal STEM learning. Design research, usability, and efficacy studies will be conducted with teens and adults at the Pacific Science Center and Boston Museum of Science, which serve audiences with autism, along with the general public. Project research is grounded in prior NSF-funded research and leverages the team's expertise in STEM learning simulations, VR development, cognitive psychology, universal design, and informal science education, as well as the vital expertise of the end-user target audience, learners with autism. In addition to being shared at conferences, the research findings will be submitted for publication to peer-reviewed journals for researchers and to appropriate publications for VR developers and disseminators, museum programs, neurodiverse communities and other potentially interested parties.
This Innovations in Development 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.
DATE:
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Teon EdwardsJodi Asbell-ClarkeJamie LarsenIbrahim Dahlstrom-Hakki
Informal STEM field trip programming is a large, yet under-researched area of the education landscape. Informal STEM education providers are often serving a more privileged section of society, leading to a risk of perpetuating inequalities seen throughout the education landscape. In an attempt to address the lack of research, this thesis explores the relationship between educational equity and informal STEM field trips. The intention was to collect data using a critical ethnography approach to the methods of qualitative questionnaire and interviews of informal STEM educators. A change in
Consideration of the needs of individuals with a wide range of disabilities is not always considered in the early design stages of an informal STEM learning (ISL) activity or program. The primary access approach for people with disabilities becomes the provision of accommodations once the ISL product or environment is created. In contrast, the Universal Design approach considers users with a wide range of characteristics throughout the design process and works to create products and environments that are accessible, usable, and inclusive. This project, called AccessISL, led by the University of Washington's DO-IT (Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking and Technology) Center and Museology Program, includes an academic museology program and local ISL sites, representing museums, zoos, aquariums, makerspaces, science centers, and other sites of informal STEM learning. Insights will be gained through the engagement of people with disabilities, museology graduate students and faculty, and ISL practitioners. The AccessISL project model, composed of a set of approaches and interventions, builds on existing research and theory in the fields of education science, change management, effective ISL practices, and inclusive design processes. The project will collect evidence of policies and practices (or lack thereof) that improve the inclusiveness of ISL with respect to a wide range of disabilities and considers approaches for the design and development of new strategies; explores what stakeholders need to make change happen; uncovers challenges to the adoption of inclusive practices in public ISL settings and explores ways to overcome them; and proposes relevant content that might be included in museology curriculum. 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.
This project addresses the following two objectives:
For ISL personnel and museology faculty: to increase knowledge, skills, and actions to make ISL programs, facilities, courses, and resources more welcoming and accessible to participants with disabilities and embed relevant practices within their work.
For postsecondary STEM students with disabilities and museology students: to increase knowledge and skills in advocating for ISL offerings that are welcoming and accessible to everyone, including those with a wide variety of disabilities, and to encourage individuals with disabilities to pursue careers in ISL.
The project employs a student-centered approach and a set of practices that embrace the social model of disability, social justice education, disability as a diversity issue, intersectionality, and Universal Design. A leadership team of interns--each member a STEM student with a disability or a museology graduate student--along with project staff will engage with the University of Washington's Museology Program to identify and implement strategies for making ISL activities and courses more welcoming and accessible to individuals with disabilities. An online community of practice will be developed from project partners and others nationwide. A one-day capacity building institute will be held to include presentations, student/personnel panels for sharing project and related experiences, and group discussions to explore issues and further identify systemic changes to make ISL programs more welcoming and accessible to individuals with disabilities. As prototypes of the AccessISL Model are developed, evaluation activities will primarily be formative (looking for strengths and weaknesses) and remedial (identifying/implementing changes that could be made to improve the model). The model will continue to be fine-tuned through formative evaluation. Evaluation of the model components will focus on the experience of a range of stakeholders in the project. Specifically, quantitative data collected will include levels and quality of engagement, accessibility recommendations and products developed, and delivery of ISL services. Qualitative data will be collected through observations, surveys, focus groups, interviews, and case studies.
AccessISL project products will include proceedings of an end-of-project capacity building institute, promising practices, case studies, a video, and other online resources to help ISL practitioners and museology faculty that will result in making future ISL opportunities more inclusive of people with disabilities. AccessISL will advance knowledge and ensure long-term impact using multiple strategies:
broadening the STEM participation of people with disabilities as well as women, racial/ethnic minorities, and other underrepresented groups through the application of universal design
strengthening associations and creating synergy and durable relationships among stakeholders,
encouraging teaching about disability, accessibility, and universal design in museology courses,
empowering students with disabilities and current and future ISL practitioners to advocate for accessible ISL and develops an infrastructure to promote accessible ISL programs nationwide, and
contributing to the body of promising practices with products that will (a) enhance understanding of issues related to the inclusion of people with disabilities in ISL programs and (b) promote inclusive practices.
Outcomes will benefit society by making STEM opportunities available to more people and enhancing STEM fields with the talents and perspectives of people with disabilities.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.