This exploratory learning research and design project will study how to use emerging technologies to help document practices in maker-based learning experiences. Despite its established potential for consolidating learning and sense-making, project documentation is often overlooked, not prioritized or seen as burdensome and therefore not integrated into the learning experiences. The project team seeks to understand and address with practice partners the barriers to documentation by systematically exploring how to physically embed and incorporate smart tools and documentation practices into learning environments, specifically creative hands-on learning spaces, like makerspaces. The goal is to understand how to scaffold learners to become more aware, reflective and attentive to their progress towards learning outcomes by embedding supportive tools physically in space as the actions unfold. Making and maker-based learning experiences offer tremendous opportunities to more fully engage diverse learners in STEM education and build a workforce prepared for innovation. Documentation of these learning experiences, both as an authentic practice that professionals engage in as well as an assessment practice for instruction, is often not supported. The project will create open source documentation for solutions and develop supporting case studies, web resources and guides to facilitate easy uptake and adoption of promising approaches.
This proposal will make significant research contributions in three ways: (1) develop and iteratively test a suite of embedded "smart" tools designed to scaffold, manage and trace process documentation practices; (2) study the integration of these tools in formal and informal activities and programs settings and characterize their influence on instruction and the assessment of learning outcomes; (3) establish a set of rubrics based on learner data streams to aid instruction and mark learner progress. Improving documentation practices and the assessment of learning outcomes will advance making as a core STEM educational activity. Through a better understanding of why and how to place networked documentation tools sensitive to space, time and context cues, the threshold for enactment and scaffolded usage can be lowered in a broader range of settings. Ultimately, this exploratory project will not only develop an integrated set of situated documentation tools, but also help us develop hypotheses for how documentation as a mediating process productively supports learning.
The Discovery Research K-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools (RMTs). Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects. The Multimedia Immersion (MI) project is will develop, pilot, and evaluate a nine-week STEM-rich multimedia production course for high school students. MI will make important contributions to the field through its efforts to design and evaluate the promises and challenges of a nine-week multimedia curriculum in multiple urban high schools. The MI course will engage teams of students to develop a personally and socially relevant storyline that guides their use of accessible audio and video technologies to create a five-minute animated video. To develop student STEM experience and provide technical support, the project will provide guidance and learning experiences in engineering (e.g., criteria, constraints, optimization, tradeoffs), science (e.g. sound, light, energy, mechanics) and multimedia technologies (e.g., computer based audio production, video editing and visualizations through animatics (i.e., shooting a succession of storyboards with a soundtrack). animatics).
Because the curriculum situates engineering and science learning in the context of multimedia production, there are natural synergies with several existing high school courses including engineering design, audio/video media production, and multimedia technology. Although these courses are typically electives in high school, developing a 5-minute animated short on a topic of interest may encourage girls and students from underrepresented groups to select this course over other electives. MI will impact 10 teachers and approximately 250 high school students per year. The project will result in the following resources: nine-week curricular unit (multimedia, science, engineering); assessments to monitor student learning of science, engineering and technology (design logs); and research on changes in student knowledge, interest, and a nine-week curricular unit (multimedia, science, engineering). Project resources will be disseminated to teachers, researchers, and curriculum and professional development providers via conference presentations, publications, and online webinars.
The MI project builds on student familiarity and interest in music, video and technology to promote an: (1) understanding of engineering design and physics and an (2) an appreciation of the fundamental role of STEM in popular culture. Project evaluation will be conducted using student surveys and an examination of work products in conjunction with implementation challenges and successes to generate evidence for the feasibility and utility of a high school multimedia course that explicitly addresses science and engineering learning. Project evaluation will use student design logs as a window into student design processes and conceptual understanding. Student design logs are an essential feature of MI curriculum design. With an appropriate structure, these design logs can inform teaching, afford an opportunity for students to reflect on their own work, and provide evidence of student thinking and learning for assessment purposes. Using student design logs as a window into students? design process and conceptual understanding is an important contribution to the engineering education community which has few options for measuring student knowledge in ways that are consistent with the hands-on, iterative nature of the design process.
This poster provides an overview, program goals, evaluation plan, and research questions for the AISL project, Techbridge Broad Implementation: An Innovative Model to Inspire Girls in STEM Careers. The poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting.
The National Federation of the Blind (NFB), with six science centers across the U.S., will develop, implement, and evaluate the National Center for Blind Youth in Science (NCBYS), a three-year full-scale development project to increase informal learning opportunities for blind youth in STEM. Through partnerships and companion research, the NCBYS will lead to greater capacity to engage the blind in informal STEM learning. The NCBYS confronts a critical area of need in STEM education, and a priority for the AISL program: the underrepresentation of people with disabilities in STEM. Educators are often unaware of methods to deliver STEM concepts to blind students, and students do not have the experience with which to advocate for accommodations. Many parents of blind students are ill-equipped to provide support or request accessible STEM adaptations. The NCBYS will expose blind youth to non-visual methods that facilitate their involvement in STEM; introduce science centers to additional non-visual methods that facilitate the involvement of the blind in their exhibits; educate parents as to their students' ability to be independent both inside and outside the STEM classroom; provide preservice teachers of blind students with hands-on experience with blind students in STEM; and conduct research to inform a field that is lacking in published material. The NCBYS will a) conduct six regional, two-day science programs for a total of 180 blind youth, one day taking place at a local science center; b) conduct concurrent onsite parent training sessions; c) incorporate preservice teachers of blind students in hands-on activities; and d) perform separate, week-long, advanced-study residential programs for 60 blind high school juniors and seniors focused on the design process and preparation for post-secondary STEM education. The NCBYS will advance knowledge and understanding in informal settings, particularly as they pertain to the underrepresented disability demographic; but it is also expected that benefits realized from the program will translate to formal arenas. The proposed team represents the varied fields that the project seeks to inform, and holds expertise in blindness education, STEM education, museum education, parent outreach, teacher training, disability research, and project management. The initiative is a unique opportunity for science centers and the disability population to collaborate for mutual benefit, with lasting implications in informal STEM delivery, parent engagement, and teacher training. It is also an innovative approach to inspiring problem-solving skills in blind high school students through the design process. A panel of experts in various STEM fields will inform content development. NCBYS advances the discovery and understanding of STEM learning for blind students by integrating significant research alongside interactive programs. The audience includes students and those responsible for delivering STEM content and educational services to blind students. For students, the program will demonstrate their ability to interface with science center activities. Students will also gain mentoring experience through activities paired with younger blind students. Parents and teachers of blind students, as well as science center personnel, will gain understanding in the experiences of the blind in STEM, and steps to facilitate their complete involvement. Older students will pursue design inquiries into STEM at a more advanced level, processes that would be explored in post-secondary pursuits. By engaging these groups, the NCBYS will build infrastructure in the informal and formal arenas. Society benefits from the inclusion of new scientific minds, resulting in a diverse workforce. The possibility for advanced study and eventual employment for blind students also reduces the possibility that they would be dependent upon society for daily care in the future. The results of the proposed project will be disseminated and published broadly through Web sites; e-mail lists; social media; student-developed e-portfolios of the design program; an audio-described video; and presentations at workshops for STEM educators, teachers of blind students, blind consumer groups, researchers in disability education, and museum personnel.
This volume explores how technology-supported learning environments can incorporate physical activity and interactive experiences in formal and informal education. It presents cutting-edge research and design work on a new generation of "body-centric" technologies such as wearable body sensors, GPS tracking devices, interactive display surfaces, video game controller devices, and humanlike avatars. Contributors discuss how and why each of these technologies can be used in service of learning within K-12 classrooms and at home, in museums and online. Citing examples of empirical evidence and
The project will develop and study the impact of science simulations, referred to as sims, on middle school childrens' understanding of science and the scientific process. The project will investigate: 1) how characteristics of simulation design (e.g., interface design, visual representations, dynamic feedback, and the implicit scaffolding within the simulation) influence engagement and learning and how responses to these design features vary across grade-level and diverse populations; 2) how various models of instructional integration of a simulation affect how students interact with the simulation, what they learn, and their preparation for future learning; 3) how these interactions vary across grade-level and diverse populations; and 4) what critical instructional features, particularly in the type and level of scaffolding, are needed. Working with teachers, the team will select 25 existing sims for study. Teachers and students will be interviewed to test for usability, engagement, interpretation, and learning across content areas. The goal will be to identify successful design alternatives and to formulate generalized design guidelines. In parallel, pull-out and classroom-based studies will investigate a variety of use models and their impact on learning. Ten new simulations will then be developed to test these guidelines. Products will include the 35 sims with related support materials available for free from a website; new technologies to collect real-time data on student use of sims; and guidelines for the development of sims for this age population. The team will also publish research on how students learn from sims.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Katherine PerkinsDaniel SchwartzMichael DubsonNoah Podolefsky
The Physics and Chemistry Education Technology (PhET) Project is developing an extensive suite of online, highly-interactive simulations, with supporting materials and activities for improving both the teaching and learning of physics and chemistry. There are currently over 70 simulations and over 250 associated activities available for use from the PhET website (http://phet.colorado.edu). These web-based resources are impacting large number of students. Per year, there are currently over 4 million PhET simulations run online and thousands of full website downloads for offline use of the simulations. The goal is that this widespread use of PhET's research-based tools and resources will improve the education of students in physics and chemistry at colleges and high schools throughout the U.S. and around the world. This PhET project combines a unique set of features. First, the simulation designs and goals are based on educational research. Second, using a team of professional programmers, disciplinary experts, and education research specialists enables the development of simulations involving technically-sophisticated software, graphics, and interfaces that are highly effective. Third, the simulations embody the predictive visual models of expert scientists, allowing many interesting advanced concepts to become widely accessible and revealing their relevance to the real world. And finally, the project is actively involved in research to better understand how the design and use of simulations impacts their effectiveness - e.g. investigating questions such as "How can these new technologies promote student understanding of complex scientific phenomena?" and "What factors inhibit or enhance their use and effectiveness?".
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Katherine PerkinsMichael DubsonNoah FinkelsteinRobert ParsonCarl Weiman