This project engages pre-college Latinx, Black, and Indigenous learners, educators, and collaborating undergraduates in an international, project-based learning and media-making community in areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The project addresses key challenges including broadening participation in informal STEM learning, developing capacity for leading informal STEM programs, and building stronger connections between STEM learning and personal and social identity formation during adolescence. The project’s community of participants is an asset-based learning environment that treats each participant, their background, skills, and interests as uniquely beneficial to the whole. Led by mentors at each hub (teachers, leaders from science organizations, or other out-of-school learning environments), participants collaborate with peers from the US and from other countries. The collaborations encompass a broad spectrum of STEM projects. Participants also create digital media to communicate their projects. The project activities reflect a focus on STEM content, collaboration, and communication, in a global context that includes school-age learners from the US and peers from Central and South America, the Middle East, Asia, and Sub-Sahara. The combination of the sophisticated STEM competencies skills for collaborating across international and cultural boundaries, and media-savvy communication abilities are essential to the nation’s future STEM workforce and to building a scientifically vibrant citizenry.
The project addresses two primary research questions co-developed with teachers and other informal science providers. The first research question involves understanding and optimizing conditions for broadening participation through this type of distributed or virtual collaboration across boundaries of culture, race, gender, ability, nationality, and socioeconomic status. The project features a design experiment by which the overall community of participants comprises four separate hubs, each hosted by the different project partners (primarily teachers). Educators devise, test, and revise alternative designs for organizing STEM collaborations. Publication of these teacher-led designs and their evaluation are among the primary outputs of the project. The designs modify and improve a template developed under this project’s proof-of-concept precursor (NSF1612824). The second research question addresses how growth in STEM abilities, collaboration, and communication mutually reinforce adolescent personal and social identity formation. Participating students in the US will intentionally reflect heterogeneous backgrounds. The project analysis will focus on whether cultural and national cross-boundary collaboration can strengthen the development of learners' personal identity and academic performance. The project methodology relies heavily on quantitative ethnography and epistemic network analysis. This approach enables the creation of visual models that highlight the presence or absence of connections between constructs relevant to each research question, along with changes between and within groups. The constructs include variations of autonomy, competence, and connection (pillars of self-determination theory) in tracing identity formation and STEM abilities. The quantitative ethnography approach provides statistically reliable scaffolding and insights about the hub designs and their efficacy in promoting goals of broadening participation and fostering mutually reinforcing STEM competencies and identity formation. This type of virtual collaboration, crossing boundaries of culture, nationality, ethnicity, age, gender, economic strata, or ability, can realistically be expected to play a significant role in next-generation learning environments, especially through out-of-school activities. The project is expected to reach 120 U.S. and 80 non-U.S. students annually. Research findings, design principles and curricula will be widely disseminated to researchers, designers, program developers, informal science institutions and community organizations.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Eric HamiltonNastassia JonesDanielle EspinoSeung Lee
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
Collaborative robots – cobots – are designed to work with humans, not replace them. What learning affordances are created in educational games when learners program robots to assist them in a game instead of being the game? What game designs work best?
Black girls display high interest, confidence and ability in STEM but face multiple barriers including racial, ethnic and gender stereotypes, low exposure to STEM role models, low awareness of diverse STEM fields and financial obstacles to STEM education. It is critical to infuse STEM education with specific and intentional culturally responsive and anti-racist strategies to attract and retain Black girls in STEM. Through this combination of media, role modeling and outreach, Black SciGirls will help increase access to STEM education for Black girls, preparing them for future workforce participation. This project will study the impacts on elementary/middle school Black girls’ exposure to early career Black female STEM professionals as role models. Deliverables include 1) professional development for STEM educators and Black STEM professional women to prepare them to lead STEM programs for girls 2) a PBS series of role model videos of early-career Black STEM professionals and 3) a research study that examines how/if in person and media-based STEM role models increase Black girls’ interest and confidence in STEM, motivation to pursue future STEM studies, and STEM identity. While women make up 47% of the U.S. workforce, they are underrepresented in STEM and only 1.6% are Black women.
The research study will examine how educators’ use of role models addresses a critical barrier for Black girls, seeing women in STEM who look like them. The research study questions are: How and in what ways do Black STEM women role models influence Black girls’ interest in STEM? How and to what extent do role models report changes in their confidence and ability to engage girls in STEM as a result of training in best practices in role modelling? and, How and to what extent are parents engaged in supporting girls’ involvement in STEM, as a result of the participation of role models? The research team will visit participating local SciGirls programs to collect qualitative data, including observations of program activities, interviews, and focus groups. To ensure reliable outcomes and utilize robust theoretical underpinnings, the research will combine pre/post survey data and an in-depth cross-case studies employing qualitative and quantitative data collection. This mixed-methods approach will enable gathering data that comprehensively offers insight into Black girls’ STEM experiences and those of the Black STEM professional women role models and parents who support them. Qualitative data that centers girls’, role models’, and parents’ perspectives will contribute to this identity-centered study. A culturally responsive evaluation will determine the extent to which the project builds educators’ ability to integrate equitable and anti-racist practices to build Black girls’ interest and confidence in STEM studies.
This Research in Service to Practice project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to (a) advance new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments; (b) provide multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences; (c) advance innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments; and (d) engage the public of all ages in learning STEM in informal environments.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Rita KarlAngel Miles NashRonda BullockAdrienne StephensonLataisia Jones
This Innovations in Development project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to (a) advance new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments; (b) provide multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences; (c) advance innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments; and (d) engage the public of all ages in learning STEM in informal environments.
Increasing greater diversity, equity, and inclusion in science not only presents a social justice goal, but is also vital to the financial and social success of the nation. The stereotype of the older white male scientist has obscured the contributions of women and people of color. This project seeks to remedy these perceptions which are barriers to entry into STEM fields. The project will create a large-scale hub for STEM themed video content on YouTube and other social media platforms, featuring 100+ original STEM videos produced by PBS partners. This hub and accompanying research seeks to identify the characteristics of online STEM content that attract (or fail to attract) underrepresented groups, specifically Black and Hispanic communities as well as women of all races. The objectives of this project are to 1) provide a unified online science-themed hub, PBS Terra, on YouTube and other platforms for hosting, sharing, and distributing digital STEM series from diverse producers from across the PBS system; 2) conduct surveys and focus groups to examine and understand the needs and expectations of women, Black and Hispanic communities and their consumption of STEM video content online and 3) test hypotheses about the communicative strategies of STEM videos that feature Black and Hispanic female scientists. Project collaborators include PBS, researchers at the University of Utah and the University of Georgia, and consultants and advisors with expertise in broadening participation and inclusion in STEM.
Little is known about how or why adult Americans seek science content on YouTube, especially the motivations of adults from underrepresented minorities and females. The key research questions in this project are: 1) Why do Black and Hispanic audiences and women of all races seek science video content online? 2) How does showing Black and Hispanic female scientists in science video content on YouTube impact viewers’ identification with and sense of belonging in STEM? 3) How does the use of humor by Black and Hispanic scientists in YouTube science content affect viewers’ perceptions of the communicator and their engagement with STEM content? 4) How does the appearance and manner of dress of Black and Hispanic scientists in YouTube science content affect viewers’ perceptions in the aforementioned areas? A nationally representative baseline survey will be conducted. A probability sample of 2000 respondents will be obtained including oversampling of Black and Hispanic audiences. To complement findings from the survey, focus groups will be conducted in eight different regions of the country to learn why these targeted audiences do or do not seek science content on YouTube and what motivates them to share the content with their social media network. In addition, an experiment embedded in an online survey will test the hypothesis that greater on-screen representation of women and scientists of color will broaden existing perceptions about scientists. The experiment will consist of a 3 (scientist’s race: Black/Hispanic/White) × 2 (science issue: controversial/non-controversial) × 2 (style: casual/professional) between-subjects design. Survey participants will be randomly assigned to the experimental conditions. These factors (science issue and host appearance) can be altered by content producers to better reach and engage the targeted audiences. The project not only investigates theoretical questions at the intersection of STEM stereotypes and race, but findings related to these experimental conditions will offer practical insight into strategies that can be used by science communication practitioners.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Adam DylewskiSara YeoMichael Cacciatore
From a strategic communication perspective, for any communication to be effective, it must be audience-centered, with content and delivery channels that are relevant to its intended target. When trying to reach culturally specific communities or other groups that are not otherwise connected with science research, it is crucial to partner with community members to co-create content through media that is appealing and culturally competent. This commentary considers some examples including storytelling through ‘fotonovelas’ and radio stories, community drama and serious games.
The University of South Carolina will develop and research an educational program in the Southeastern United States designed to recognize and foreground the scientific contributions of the descendants of West Africans and West Indians. Though these contributions have been vital to many scientific enterprises, including land stewardship and aquaponics, they have remained largely underappreciated in educational programs. To address this issue, this project will develop an informal science education program for youth from Gullah/Geechee communities whose ancestors were formerly enslaved West African and West Indian peoples. Across centuries, Gullah/Geechee people have developed historical and contemporary scientific, engineering, and technological practices that enabled the mastery of fishing and the cultivation of numerous crops across barrier islands and coastal cities from North Carolina to Florida. Guided by Gullah/Geechee scholars and community members, pre-service and in-service teachers will co-design culturally sustaining summer programs, which provide Gullah/Geechee youth with opportunities to engage in culturally-embedded scientific and engineering practices as they learn about numerous STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) career pathways related to these practices. The University of South Carolina will host these summer programs in partnership with the historic Penn Center, an African American historical and cultural institution, and in partnership with the Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences, a research organization dedicated to improving the management of marine and coastal resources. Researchers will study how the in-service and pre-service teachers enact pedagogies that sustain Gullah/Geechee cultural practices. They will also study how the Gullah/Geechee youth share their understandings of culturally-embedded scientific content through creating iMovies and through giving community presentations hosted by the Penn Center, Baruch Institute, and other community partners. This project will advance knowledge on broadening participation in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) career pathways in informal settings through culturally sustaining pedagogies. This project will also advance partnerships through illuminating how different institutions and stakeholders?such as community leaders, cultural centers, university educator programs, and scientific research organizations can work together to support culturally-embedded learning across informal settings.
The University of South Carolina will conduct a mixed-method study grounded in principles of design-based research and community-based participatory research. Pre-service and in-service teachers from underrepresented groups will participate in an immersive two-year professional development experience during which they co-design and teach culturally sustaining summer programs with Gullah/Geechee scholars and leaders. In these programs, fifth- and sixth-grade Gullah/Geechee youth will engage in project-based learning by applying historical and contemporary scientific practices grounded in Gullah/Geechee cultures. Guided by cultural mentors, youth will engage in STEM practices similar to those of STEM professionals in the community. Researchers will study how the educators understand and apply culturally sustaining pedagogies by using constant comparative analytic methods to analyze transcripts from observations and interviews, as well as the educators' work materials (e.g., lesson plans). They will also study how the youth convey their understandings of culturally-embedded scientific content and practices by using constant comparative and multimodal analysis to analyze transcripts from interviews and observations, as well as youth-generated artifacts such as the iMovie. Additionally, pre- and post-tests will enable the research team to determine changes to the youths' understandings of scientific content and perceptions regarding participation in STEM enterprises and careers. Deliverables, such as youth-generated products, will be shared with local media and with relevant cultural centers, while empirical results will be widely disseminated through local and national conferences. This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts, and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers. This project is also co-funded by the Advanced Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program. As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the AISL program 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.
Research shows that algebra is a major barrier to student success, enthusiasm and participation in STEM for under-represented students, particularly African-American students in under-resourced high schools. Programs that develop ways to help students master algebra concepts and a belief that they can perform algebra may lead to more students entering engineering careers. This project will provide an online engineering program to support 9th and 10th grade Baltimore City Public Schools students, a predominantly low-income African-American cohort, to develop concrete goals of becoming engineers. The goals of the program are to help students with a growing interest in engineering to maintain that interest throughout high school. The project will also support students aspire to an engineering career. The project will develop in students an appreciation of requisite courses and skills, and increase self-efficacy in mathematics. The project will also develop a replicable model of informal education capable of reinforcing the mathematical foundations that students learn during the school day. Additionally, the project will broaden participation in engineering by being available to students during out-of-school time and by having relaxed entrance criteria compared to existing opportunities in supplemental engineering curricula. The project is a collaboration between the Baltimore City Public Schools, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Northrop Grumman Corporation, and Expanded School-Based Mental Health programs to support students both during and after participation. The project will benefit society by providing skills that will allow high school students to become members of tomorrow's highly trained STEM workforce.
The research will test whether an informal, scaffolded online algebra-for-engineering program increases students' mastery and self-efficacy in mathematics. The research will advance knowledge regarding informal education by applying Social Cognitive Career Theory as a framework for measuring program impact. The theoretical framework will aid in identifying mechanisms through which students with interest in engineering might persist in maintaining this interest through high school via algebra skill mastery and increased self-efficacy. The project will recruit 200 youth from the Baltimore City Public Schools to participate in the project over three years. Qualitative data will be collected to assess how student and school socioeconomic factors impact implementation, student engagement, and outcomes. The research will answer the following questions: 1) What effect does program participation have on math mastery? 2) What direct and indirect effects do program completion and supports have on students' mathematics self-efficacy? 3) What direct and indirect effects do program components have on engineering career goals by the end of the program? 4) What direct and indirect effects does math self-efficacy have on career goals? 5) To what extent are the effects of program participation on engineering career goals mediated by math self-efficacy and engineering interest? 6) How do school factors relate to the implementation of the program? 7) What socioeconomic-related factors relate to the regularity and continuation of student participation in the program? The quantitative methods of data analysis will employ descriptive and multivariate statistical methods. Qualitative data from interviews will be analyzed using an emergent approach and a coding scheme guided by theoretical constructs. Project results will be communicated to scholars and practitioners. The team will also share information through school newsletters and parent communication through Baltimore City Public Schools.
This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers.
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.
The independent evaluation firm Knight Williams, Inc. conducted a formative evaluation during Year 2 of the SciGirls CONNECT2 program in order to gather information about the partner educators’ use of, reflections on, and recommendations relating to the draft updated SciGirls Strategies. The evaluation aimed for two educators from each of 14 partner organizations – specifically the program leader and one educator who was familiar with the original SciGirls Seven – to provide reflections on their use of the draft SciGirls Strategies in their programs through an online survey and follow-up
This project will produce a four-part mini-series on African American Language (AAL) designed for television broadcast as well as for formal and informal public educational distribution. This mini-series addresses the social, cultural, and educational issues related to the most prominent, the most controversial, and the most misunderstood dialect in the history of American English--African American Language. Dialect prejudice, linguistic profiling, and language-based discrimination continue to be "so commonly accepted, so widely perceived as appropriate, that it must be seen as the last back door to discrimination. And the door is still wide open" (Lippi-Green 2012:73). By presenting the history, development, diversity, and symbolic role of language in the lives of African Americans, this documentary series helps to counteract the persistent misinformation and misinterpretation circulated about the language of African Americans. The series builds on the popular public reception to the one-hour documentary, Talking Black in America: The Story of African American Language, and includes the following episodes: 1) the historical and contemporary development of African American Language; 2) the diversity of language use among African Americans based on region, age, status, education, and style; 3) the use of language in expressive performance, including preaching, comedy, music, hip hop, spoken word, and other expressive genres; and 4) the role of language differences in educational achievement. A website accompanying the series will include a variety of educational resources, including streaming, discursive chapters with integrated vignettes from the episodes, additional commentary and background, activities, and discussion questions for each episode, with further online materials for education. The documentary and accompanying activities constitute an important milestone in the effort to educate the public about language diversity in American society.
No dialect in the history of American English has been more prominent, more controversial, and more misunderstood than African American Language, and dialect prejudice, linguistic profiling, and language discrimination still intensely affect speakers of this variety. By presenting the history, development, diversity, and symbolic role of language in the lives of African Americans, this documentary series will help to counteract the persistent misinformation circulated about African American Language. This series and the accompanying online materials offer an important milestone in the effort to educate the public about language diversity that can help to reduce linguistic discrimination in American society.
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.
There is a dearth of prominent STEM role models for underrepresented populations. For example, according to a 2017 survey, only 3.1% of physicists in the United States are Black, only 2.1% are Hispanic, and only 0.5% are Native American. The project will help bridge these gaps by developing exhibits that include simulations of historical scientific experiments enacted by little-known scientists of color, virtual reality encounters that immerse participants in the scientists' discovery process, and other content that allows visitors to interact with the exhibits and explore the exhibits' themes. The project will develop transportable, interactive exhibits focusing on light: how we perceive light, sources of light from light bulbs to stars, uses of real and artificial light in human endeavors, and past and current STEM innovators whose work helps us understand, create, and harness light now. The exhibits will be developed in three stages, each exploring a characteristic of light (Color, Energy, or Time). Each theme will be explored via multiple deliveries: short documentary and animated films, virtual reality experiences, interactive "photobooths," and technology-based inquiry activities. The exhibit components will be copied at seven additional sites, which will host the exhibits for their audiences, and the project's digital assets will enable other STEM learning organizations to duplicate the exhibits. The exhibits will be designed to address common gaps in understanding, among adults as well as younger learners, about light. What light really is and does, in scientific terms, is one type of hidden story these exhibits will convey to general audiences. Two other types of science stories the exhibits will tell: how contemporary research related to light, particularly in astrophysics, is unveiling the hidden stories of our universe; and hidden stories of STEM innovators, past and present, women and men, from diverse backgrounds. These stories will provide needed role models for the adolescent learners, helping them learn complex STEM content while showing them how scientific research is conducted and the diverse community of people who can contribute to STEM innovations and discoveries.
The project deliverables will be designed to present complex physics content through coherent, immersive, and embodied learning experiences that have been demonstrated to promote engagement and deeper learning. The project will research whether participants, through interacting with these exhibits, can begin to integrate discrete ideas and make connections with complex scientific content that would be difficult without technology support. For example, students and other novices often lack the expertise necessary to make distinctions between what is needed and what is extra within scientific problems. The proposed study follows a Design-Based Research (DBR) approach characterized by iterative cycles of data collection, analysis, and reflection to inform the design of educational innovations and advance educational theory. Project research includes conceiving, building, and testing iterative phases, which will enable the project to capture the complexity of learning and engagement in informal learning settings. Research participants will complete a range of research activities, including focus group interviews, observation, and pre-post assessment of science content knowledge and dispositions.
By showcasing such role models and informing about related STEM content, this project will widen perspectives of audiences in informal learning settings, particularly adolescents from groups underrepresented in STEM fields. Research findings and methodologies will be shared widely in the informal STEM learning community, building the field's knowledge of effective ways to broaden participation in informal science learning, and thus increase broaden participation in and preparation for the STEM-based workforce.
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.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Todd BoyetteJill HammJanice AndersonCrystal Harden