This project will teach foundational computational thinking (CT) concepts to preschoolers by creating a mobile app to guide families through sequenced sets of videos and hands-on activities, building on the popular PBS KIDS series Work It Out Wombats!
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Marisa WolskyJanna KookJessica Andrews
This project will teach foundational computational thinking (CT) concepts to preschoolers by creating a series of mobile apps to guide families through sequenced sets of videos and hands-on activities. To support families at home it would also develop a new library model to build librarians' computational thinking content knowledge and self-efficacy so they can support parents' efforts with their children. Computational thinking is a an increasingly critical skill for learning and success in the workforce. It includes the ability to identify problems, brainstorm and generate solutions and processes that can be communicated and followed by computers or humans. There are few projects that introduce computational thinking to young children. Very little research has been done on the ways that parents can facilitate children's engagement in CT skills. And developing a model that trains and supports librarians to become virtual coaches of parents as they engage with their children in CT, will leverage and build the expertise of librarians. The project's target audience includes parents and children living in rural areas where access to CT learning may be very limited. Project partners include the EDC, a major research organization, the American Library Association, and BUILD, a national association that promotes collaborations across library, kindergarten readiness, and public media programming.
The formative research study asks: 1) What supports do parents of preschoolers in rural communities need in order to effectively engage in CT with their children at home? and 2) How can libraries in rural communities support joint CT exploration in family homes? The summative research study asks: 3) how can an intervention that combines media resources, mobile technology, and library supports foster sustained joint parent/child engagement and positive attitudes around CT? Researchers will develop a parent survey, adapting several scales from previously developed instruments that ask parents to report on children's use of CT-related vocabulary and CT-related attitudes and dispositions. Survey scales will assess librarians' attitudes towards CT, as well as their self-efficacy in supporting parents in CT in a virtual environment. During the formative study, EDC will pilot-test survey scales with 30 parents and 6 librarians in rural MS and KY. Analyses will be primarily qualitative and will be geared toward producing rapid feedback for the development team. Quantitative analyses will be used on parent app use, using both time query and back-end data, exploring factors associated with time spent using apps. The summative study will evaluate how the new media resources and mobile technology, in combination with the library virtual implementation model, support families' joint engagement with CT, and positive attitudes around CT. The researchers will recruit 125 low-income families with 4- to 5-year-old children in rural MS and KY to participate in the study. They will randomly assign families within each library to the full intervention condition, including media resources, mobile technology, and library support delivered through the virtual implementation model, or the media and mobile-technology-only condition. This design will allow researchers to understand more fully the additional benefit of library support for rural families' sustained engagement, and conversely, see the comparative impact of a media- and mobile-technology only intervention, given that some families might not be able to access virtual or physical library support.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (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 project is co-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 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.
There is a national need to expand opportunities to learn coding and computational thinking in informal science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. These skills are increasingly needed in STEM disciplines. As young people learn to code, they engage in computational thinking concepts and practices which are problem solving strategies that include repeated process (iterative) design skills. This project promotes innovation by designing and developing activities for tinkering spaces (a space filled with materials for hands-on exploration of STEM) combined with coding in informal learning organizations such as museums, and community centers. The project supports both tinkering and making as methods to meaningfully incorporate computational thinking in STEM learning experiences. The tinkering approach to learning is characterized by hands-on, trial and error engagement. Making is similar to tinkering with additional attention to learning with peer groups. The long-term goal of the project is to enable informal educators to engage in STEM programming with youth and families from underrepresented groups. The project brings together interdisciplinary teams from the Department of Information Science at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), the Tinkering Studio at the Exploratorium, and the Lifelong Kindergarten research group at the Massachusetts Institution of Technology. In collaboration with local partner sites, the project team will design and disseminate a collection of six computational tinkering activity areas that engage learners in creative explorations using a combination of physical objects and computational code. The team will develop visual coding "microworlds" for each of the activity areas, specialized sets of coding blocks designed to provide scaffolding. Additionally, the project team will design and develop facilitation guides to document these activities and facilitation strategies, as well as workshops to better support facilitators in making and tinkering spaces.
The project enhances knowledge building through investigations of what instructional supports informal educators need to develop effective facilitation practices that engage underrepresented youth and families in STEM computational learning experiences. Study participants will include informal educators in museum, library, and community-based settings with varying backgrounds and experiences facilitating computing activities. The project team will also engage youth and families from underrepresented groups through collaborative efforts with community-based partners. Research questions include: 1) What challenges and barriers do informal learning educator, face to engage their learners in design-based activities with computing? 2) What supports informal learning educators to take on key facilitation practices that support children and families in computational tinkering activities? 3) In jointly engaging in these computational tinkering activities, how do the activities and informal learning educators? facilitation of these activities impact children's and families' development of computational tinkering and identities as creators and learners with computing? To answer these research questions the project will use qualitative ethnographic methods to study the developing interactions between learners and facilitators at three local sites. Comparative case studies of facilitators across the local partner sites will also be used to examine what supports facilitators to take on key facilitation practices. Data sources will include participant observation of facilitators and families, documentation in the form of photos, videos, and audio recordings, project artifacts, bi-monthly short surveys with reflective prompts, and interviews with facilitators and families.
This award 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.
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.
Youth generate data in the form of social media posts, and they are likely to understand that these data can be used by others for multiple purposes. However, they may be less likely to know that other personal data, such as records related to shopping patterns or medical visits, can also be tracked, analyzed, and used. Consequently, today's young people have a personal stake in their ability to understand and critically question multiple types of data practices. This project will advance knowledge regarding how informal educational organizations can empower young people in a data-centric world. In partnership with public libraries in New York City, Pratt Institute will develop a model for supporting critical data literacy in informal settings. Critical data literacy includes the ability to critique data practices throughout the data life cycle; to situate data within broader contexts such as cyberinfrastructures and societal trends; and to use data to answer questions and to achieve purposes that are personally meaningful and important. To develop a model of informal education that supports critical data literacy, the project team will co-design data literacy sessions with teenagers in libraries. These data literacy sessions will provide teens with opportunities to engage in critical data practices and inquiry in the context of issues they identify as being important to them. The project team will conduct research on the methods that support youths' co-design of critical data literacy programs. This project will result in a model of a youth-driven educational program that can be scaled and enacted in libraries and informal settings nationwide, with the ultimate purpose of fostering a more empowered, data-literate citizenry.
The project will recruit 25 teenagers ages 13-17, including those from underrepresented groups, to co-design and implement four to six 90-minute critical data literacy sessions in a public library. The research team will use design-based participatory research to study the process of co-design, and they will improve this co-design process with three additional cohorts of 25 teenagers each. This study will answer the following three research questions: (1) How can critical data literacy be supported within the sociohistorical context of the public library in ways that speak to young people? (2) How can the affordances of co-design scaffold meaningful informal learning about critical data literacy? (3) What do the designs and artifacts created by young people say about sustained engagement and learning with regard to facets of critical data literacy? To answer these questions, the research team will use thematic and descriptive coding to analyze data sources such as interviews and focus groups with teens and library staff, observations of critical data literacy sessions, youth-generated artifacts, and surveys with youth participants. Empirical findings will be disseminated widely through professional networks, conferences, and journals for informal educators, educational researchers, and information scientists, and the co-design model will be disseminated widely to practitioners of informal science education. This project is 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 Pilot and Feasability Study 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.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Leanne BowlerMark RosinIrene Lopatovska