Informal STEM learning experiences (ISLEs), such as participating in science, computing, and engineering clubs and camps, have been associated with the development of youth’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics interests and career aspirations. However, research on ISLEs predominantly focuses on institutional settings such as museums and science centers, which are often discursively inaccessible to youth who identify with minoritized demographic groups. Using latent class analysis, we identify five general profiles (i.e., classes) of childhood participation in ISLEs from data
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Remy DouHeidi CianZahra HazariPhilip SadlerGerhard Sonnert
The project will develop and research an after-school program designed to engage rural, Latinx youth in design thinking and math through making. Making is a learner-centered environment where participants design, create, and develop projects. Latinx individuals are underrepresented in the STEM workforce. The project will engage Latinx youth during the critical middle school years when young people make choices that affect their futures. The project will work with community members, after school staff, and youth as co-designers to develop and pilot the complete after school program. The program will involve Latinx youth who live in the agricultural regions of the Southwest United States with the goal of developing agency and positive identity, as makers, mathematical doers and users, and active community members. They will engage in developmentally appropriate mathematics, such as the volume and surface area of geometric shapes, within the context of informal learning projects. The program will comprise four semester-long after school projects, involving participants for 2-4 hours each week, during which time youth will design and create objects to address typical community challenges. Each project will incorporate smaller modules to enable youth with different attendance needs to participate. Real community problems (e.g., drought) and solution paths (e.g., water catchment system) will motivate the making and the mathematics. The program, co-designed in partnership with the Cesar Chavez Foundation, promises to reach 100,000 youth over the next decade. Because the program can serve as a model for others with similar goals, this reach has the potential to be expanded in many other communities.
Project research will address a gap in the current literature on mathematics, making, and community membership. The project connects community mathematics—the rich mathematical knowledge and practices drawn from communities—to educational making to both enrich understanding of school mathematics and aid in developing students’ positive mathematical and cultural identities. The project will also result in a model of professional development that can be used and studied by after school programs and researchers, contributing to the limited body of knowledge of professional development on STEM making for after school facilitators. The research design for this project will follow a mixed methods approach where quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis will occur simultaneously. Results of both strands will be brought together at the interpretation and reporting level to compare and bring out the convergence, divergence, or complementarity of findings. The research will take place in two stages (co-design and pilot) over 3 years, with an additional half year for developing communications of the findings. Research will address the following questions: (1) What are the key features of projects for integrating community mathematics, school mathematics understanding, and design/making? (2) How do facilitators support the youth in engaging in program activities? (3) What math content and practices do youth learn through participation in program activities? and (4) How do youth’s agency and identity as makers, mathematics doers and users, and community members change with participation in the program? Program research and resources will be disseminated nationally through the Cesar Chavez Foundation and by sharing project research and resources through publications and conference presentations reaching researchers, educators, and program developers.
Making as a term has gained attention in the educational field. It signals many different meanings to many different groups, yet is not clearly defined. This project’s researchers refer to making as a term that bears social and cultural impact but with a broader more sociocultural association than definitions that center making in STEM learning. Using the theoretical lenses of critical relationality and embodiment, our research team position curriculum as a set of locally situated activities that are culturally, linguistically, socially, and politically influenced. We argue that curriculum
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Veronica OguilveWen WenEm BowenYousra AbourehabAmanda BermudezElizabeth GaxiolaJill Castek
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
"Making and Tinkering" links science, technology, engineering and mathematics learning (STEM) to the do-it-yourself "maker" movement, where people of all ages "create and share things in both the digital and physical world" (Resnick & Rosenbaum, 2013). This paper examines designing what Resnick and Rosenbaum (2013) call "contexts for tinkerability" within the social design experiment of El Pueblo Mágico (EPM) -- a design approach organized around a cultural historical view of learning and development. We argue that this theoretical perspective reorganizes normative approaches to STEM education
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Lisa SchwartzDaniela DigiacomoKris Gutierrez
This three-year research and implementation project empowers middle school LatinX youth to employ their own assets and funds of knowledge to solve community problems through engineering. Only 7% of adults in the STEM job cluster are of Hispanic/Latino origin. There is a continuing need for filling engineering jobs in our current and future economy. This project will significantly broaden participation of LatinX youth in engineering activities at a critical point as they make career decisions. Design Squad Global LatinX expands on a tested model previously funded by NSF and shown to be successful. It will enable LatinX youth to view themselves as designers and engineers and to build from their strengths to expand their skills and participation in science and engineering. The project goals are to: 1) develop an innovative inclusive approach to informal engineering education for LatinX students that can broaden their engineering participation and that of other underrepresented groups, (2) to galvanize collaborations across diverse local, national, and international stakeholders to create a STEM learning ecosystem and (3) to advance knowledge about a STEM pedagogy that bridges personal-cultural identity and experience with engineering knowledge and skills. Project deliverables include a conceptual framework for a strength-based approach to engineering education for LatinX youth, a program model that is asset based, a collection of educational resources including a club guide for how to scaffold culturally responsive engineering challenge activities, an online training course for club leaders, and a mentoring strategy for university engineering students working with middle school youth. Project partners include the global education organization, iEARN, the Society of Women Engineers, and various University engineering programs.
The research study will employ an experimental study design to evaluate the impact on youth participating in the Design Squad LatinX programs. The key research questions are (1) Does participation increase students' positive perceptions of themselves and understanding of engineering and global perspectives? (2) To what extent do changes in understanding engineering vary by community (site) and by student characteristics (age, gender, ethnicity)? (3) Do educators and club leaders increase their positive perceptions of youths' funds of knowledge and their own understanding of engineering? and (4) Do university mentors increase their ability to lead informal engineering/STEM education with middle school youth? A sample from 72 local Design Squad LatinX clubs with an enrollment of 10-15 students will be drawn with half randomly assigned to the participant condition and half to the control condition. Methods used include pre and post surveys, implementation logs for checks on program implementation, site visits to carry out observations, focus groups with students and interviews with adult leaders. Data will be analyzed by estimating hierarchical linear models with observations. In addition, in-situ ethnographically-oriented observations as well as interviews at two sites will be used to develop qualitative case studies.
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.
This video captures the energy and potetial of the Designing our Tomorrow project. It is intended to complement presentations and posters about Designing our Tomorrow.
The Designing Our Tomorrow project aims to develop a framework for creating exhibit-based engineering design challenges and expand an existing model of facilitation for use in engineering exhibits. Designing our Tomorrow seeks to broaden participation in engineering and build capacity within the informal science education (ISE) field while raising public awareness of the importance of sustainable engineering design practices
The maker movement has evoked interest for its role in breaking down barriers to STEM learning. However, few empirical studies document how youth are supported over time, in STEM-rich making projects or their outcomes. This longitudinal critical ethnographic study traces the development of 41 youth maker projects in two community-centered making programs. Building a conceptual argument for an equity-oriented culture of making, the authors discuss the ways in which making with and in community opened opportunities for youth to project their communities’ rich culture knowledge and wisdom onto
This research paper critically explores the common definitions and perceptions of Making that may potentially disenfranchise traditionally underrepresented groups in engineering. Given the aspects of engineering design that are commonly integrated into Making activities, the Maker movement is increasingly recognized as a potentially transformative pathway for young people to developing early interest and understanding in engineering. However, “what counts” as Making can often be focused heavily on electronic-based and computational forms of Making, such as activities that involve 3D printers
This guide offers insight into community engagement practices and activity development from our making and equity project, Making Connections. It includes documentation and recommendations for work that is designed to engage community partners as equal partners, and is written most of all for other practitioners.