There is growing concern that opportunities for outdoor learning by school students in England have decreased substantially in recent years. In response to this, and recent Government calls for ‘schools to make better use of the outdoor classroom as a context for teaching and learning’, the Field Studies Council (FSC) and several partner organisations commissioned the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to undertake a review of research on outdoor learning.
This document summarises the key findings of this review, which critically examined 150 pieces of research on outdoor
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mark RickinsonJustin DillonKelly TeameyMarian MorrisMee Young ChoiDawn SandersPauline Benefield
This project will develop standardized, exportable and comparable assessment instruments and models for Women In Engineering (WIE) programs nationwide, thus allowing them to assess their program's activities and ultimately provide data for making well-informed evaluations.
To accomplish this goal, the principal investigators at the University of Missouri and Penn State University will work over a three-year period with their institutions' WIE programs and three cooperating programs at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Georgia Tech, and University of Texas at Austin. With these five programs that collectively represent a variety of private and public, years of experience for WIE directors and student body characteristics, the investigators will pilot, revise, implement, conduct preliminary data analysis and disseminate easy-to-access, reliable and valid assessment instruments. The principles of formative evaluation will be applied to all instruments and products. All institutions will use the same set of instruments, thus allowing them to have access to powerful benchmarking data in addition to the data from each of their respective institutions.
A prior project, the Women's Experience in College Engineering Project (WECE) sought to characterize the factors that influence women students' experiences and decisions by studying college environments, events and support programs that affect women's satisfaction with their engineering major, and their decisions to persist or leave these majors. In contrast to WECE's macro-level and student focus, this proposal's target audience is WIE directors, with a focus on WIE programs, not students.
Women in Engineering programs around the United States are a crucial part of our country's response to the need for more women in engineering professions. There are about 50 WIE programs nationwide. Half have expressed interest in this effort. WIE directors will benefit by having ready-made assessment tools that will allow them to collect data on programs, evaluate these programs, and make decisions on how to revise programs and / or redistribute limited resources to maximize overall program effectiveness. Data from these instruments will also provide substantiated evidence for administrators, advisory boards and potential funding agencies. Finally, because these instruments will be available nationwide, programs will have the opportunity to take advantage of powerful benchmarking data for their decision-making processes.
This project provides the next logical step in the national movement to recruit and retain women in engineering.
Goodman Research Group, Inc. (GRG), a research firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts specializing in program evaluation, has been conducting external evaluation of ZOOM for WGBH-TV Boston since 1998. GRG's Season VI evaluation comprised a pilot test to investigate the effectiveness of the new online ZOOMSCITM TRAINING: LEARN TO LEAD SCIENCE ACTIVITIES (ZOOMsci Training), a self-directed, online tutorial designed to help afterschool educators learn how to lead hands-on science activities with kids ages 8 to 11. The goal of the training is to motivate leaders, help them develop science-teaching
The purpose of this longitudinal case study is to describe the educational trajectories of a sample of 152 young women from urban, low-income, single-parent families who participated in the Women in Natural Sciences (WINS) program during high school. Utilizing data drawn from program records, surveys, and interviews, this study also attempts to determine how the program affected the participants' educational and career choices to provide insight into the role informal science education programs play in increasing the participation of women and minorities in science, math, engineering, and
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kathleen FadiganPenny Hammrich
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Coalition for Science After School (CSAS) was established in 2004 in response to the growing need for more STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning opportunities in out-of-school time. CSAS sought to build this field by uniting STEM education goals with out-of-school time opportunities and a focus on youth development. Over a decade of work, CSAS Steering Committee members, staff and partners advocated for STEM in out-of-school-time settings, convened leaders, and created resources to support this work. CSAS leadership decided to conclude CSAS operations in 2014, as the STEM in out-of-school time movement had experienced tremendous growth of programming and attention to science-related out-of-school time opportunities on a national level. In its ten-year strategic plan, CSAS took as its vision the full integration of the STEM education and out-of-school time communities to ensure that quality out-of-school time STEM opportunities became prevalent and available to learners nationwide. Key CSAS activities included: (1) Setting and advancing a collective agenda by working with members to identify gaps in the field, organizing others to create solutions that meet the needs, identifying policy needs in the field and supporting advocates to advance them; (2) Developing and linking committed communities by providing opportunities for focused networking and learning through conferences, webinars, and other outreach activities; and (3) Identifying, collecting, capturing, and sharing information and available research and resources in the field. The leadership of the Coalition for Science After School is deeply grateful to the funders, partners, supporters, and constituents that worked together to advance STEM in out-of-school time during the last decade, and that make up today's rich and varied STEM in out-of-school time landscape. We have much to be proud of, but as a movement there is much more work to be done. As this work continues to expand and deepen, it is appropriate for the Coalition for Science After School to step down as the many other organizations that have emerged over the last decade take on leadership for the critical work that remains to be done. A timeline and summary of CSAS activities, products, and accomplishments is available for download on this page. All resources noted in the narrative are also available for download below.
Analysis of the Harvard Family Research Project’s database of program evaluations suggests ways community-based afterschool programs can negotiate with schools to share financial, physical, social, and intellectual resources.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Christopher WimerMargaret PostPriscilla Little
Growing public and policy interest in the use of afterschool time has led to a need for research methods that allow investigators and stakeholders to examine and refine program models and activities. The case study method offers promise for afterschool research, but case study models must be refined in order to adequately study afterschool programming, which is characterized by collaboration among numerous stakeholders. “The Four Cs”—collaboration, communication, content, and coherence—provide one such framework. This method allows researchers who study afterschool education to respect its
Increasingly, collaboration between business, non-profit, health and educational agencies is being championed as a powerful strategy to achieve a vision otherwise not possible when independent entities work alone. But the definition of collaboration is elusive and it is often difficult for organizations to put collaboration into practice and assess it with certainty. Program evaluators can assist practitioners concerned with the development of a strategic alliance predicated on collaboration by understanding and utilizing principles of collaboration theory. The Strategic Alliance Formative
SUMMARY The Peabody Museum at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut contracted Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A) to evaluate the Dinosaurs and More school tour. In the spring of 2004, RK&A surveyed second grade teacher and student samples, including: 27 pre-tour teacher questionnaires, 519 pre-tour student questionnaires, 24 post-tour teacher questionnaires, 412 post-tour student questionnaires. RK&A also conducted 21 teacher and 35 student interviews, and 3 classroom observations to document the impact and effectiveness of the Dinosaurs and More school tour.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Randi Korn & Associates, Inc.Yale University
Goodman Research Group, Inc. (GRG), an evaluation research firm specializing in the evaluation of educational programs, services, and materials, is conducting an evaluation of PEEP and the Big Wide World (PEEP). The primary focus of the evaluation is to assess PEEP's appeal and the extent to which the various components of PEEP (e.g., television series, Web site, and educators' print guide) contribute to encouraging children ages 3-5 years to engage in hands-on science explorations of their everyday environments. GRG employed several data collection methods to assess PEEP, including a children
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jennifer BeckWGBH-TV BostonJennie MurackIrene F Goodman
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Nanoscale Science and Engineering Education (NSEE) Center for Learning and Teaching (NCLT) would focus on the research and development of nano-science instructional resources for grades 7-16, related professional development opportunities for 7-12 teachers, and programs infused with nano-science content for education doctoral students. The Center would bring together educators and scientists from several areas of nano-science and engineering research to collaborate with science teachers and doctoral candidates in education on both the development of the resources and research on their efficacy. The PI has prior experience as director of the Materials World Modules project, an NSF-funded curriculum currently in use in several secondary schools across the country. Lead partners in the proposed Center are Northwestern University, Purdue University, University of Michigan, University of Illinois at Chicago and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Additional partners include Argonne National Laboratory, West Point Military Academy, Alabama A & M University, Fisk University, Hampton University, Morehouse College and University of Texas at El Paso. The additional partners will widen the geographic range of the project, expanding opportunities to reach a diverse and currently underrepresented population of graduate students, teachers and ultimately students. STEM and Education faculty and researchers from the partner institutions would participate in interdisciplinary teams to address the Center's mission: Provide national education leadership and resources for advancing NSEE Create and implement professional development programs in NSEE Use innovative ideas in learning to design instructional materials for grades 7-16 Conduct research relating to integration of NSEE into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
R. P. H. ChangThomas MasonNcholas GiordanoJoseph Krajcik
Mixing in Math is a multi-dimensional, three-year project that seeks to build the capacity of after-school programs to provide meaningful and engaging math activities for youth. Program collaborators including project leaders from TERC and after-school program leaders will reach approximately 40,000 children through at least 350 sites and approximately 9,000 staff and volunteers. Drawing on the unique features of the after-school environment, the project design includes the following elements: development of materials appropriate to the setting; staff development and support; institutionalization and dissemination of materials throughout an established network and evaluation research to further knowledge about informal math and after-school programming. Project goals are to: provide free math materials to all participating after-school staff; produce a significant increase in informal math training for the after-school workforce; strengthen the role of informal math in after-school settings; and conduct and disseminate research on the project in terms of its impact on after-school programming, informal math education and the math "achievement gap." "Mixing in Math" national partners will facilitate further reach of the project. The National Institute of Out of School Time (NIOST) in addition to posting materials on their website, will incorporate project activities into their staff development programs. Ceridian, a work-life benefits provider, will distribute project materials to workplace school-ages childcare programs.