This poster was presented at the 2019 AISL PI Meeting in Washington, DC. It provides an overview of a project designed to broaden participation of blind students in engineering fields through the development of spatial ability skills and the showcasing of nonvisually accessible teaching methods and techniques.
By using widely-available technologies, this project brings fully online instructional coaching in STEM to out-of-school educators who live too remotely to attend ongoing in-person workshops.
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Sue AllenPerrin ChickScott ByrdAlexandria BrasiliLiv DetrickLynn FarrinHannah Lakin
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Many informal learning institutions are experimenting with STEAM approaches to engage diverse learners. However, what STEAM means, including how to design and enact STEAM experiences, is undertheorized. We are offering a PD series for informal educators that centers around a set of core STEAM practices that support identity work among learners. The series involves in-person sessions, online training, and team coaching during the design phase.
This poster was presented at the 2019 NSF AISL Principal Investigators Meeting.
The COMPASS conference will bring together 80 participants for two days in September 2018 at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, CA. The first dissemination will take place in a presentation at the ASTC conference the following month in October 2018. A webinar sharing insights from COMPASS and inviting others to engage will be held in March 2019 hosted by ASTC and accessible by ASTC members and non-members alike. A companion COMPASS e-publication will be released for free download, also in March 2019, with summaries of conference proceedings, key issues identified, case histories of ILAM in
Why Zoos and Aquariums Matter (WZAM3) conference presentaiton slides for the 2018 ASTC Annual Conference (Hartford, CT) and the NAAEE 2018 Annual Conference and Research Symposium (Spokane, WA).
The project asks, “What are the real outcomes of the zoo or aquarium enterprise, both as a visitor destination and as a public voice in public media?” and has the following three aims:
To understand how visitor goals and behavior impact learning.
To understand how the conservation education agenda of most Z/As interlaces with those goals.
To understand how the public situates the voice of Z/As in society.
Project poster presented at the 2019 AISL PI Meeting in Alexandria, VA.
We present results of an experimental study of an urban, museum-based science teacher PD programme. A total of 125 teachers and 1676 of their students in grades 4–8 were tested at the beginning and end of the school year in which the PD programme took place. Teachers and students were assessed on subject content knowledge and attitudes towards science, along with teacher classroom behaviour. Subject content questions were mostly taken from standardised state tests and literature, with an ‘Explain:’ prompt added to some items. Teachers in the treatment group showed a 7% gain in subject content
How does focusing on “community science literacy” change the role of an informal science learning center?
This poster was presented at the 2019 NSF AISL Principal Investigators meeting.
The goal of this three-year project is to leverage NSF’s investment in both SciGirls and computer science education by engaging 8-13 year-old girls in computational thinking and coding through innovative transmedia programming which inspires and prepares them for future computer science studies and careers.
This is the STEM Ambassador Program poster presented at 2019 NSF AISL PI Meeting. The STEM Ambassador Program guides scientists to engage outside traditional informal STEM education (ISE) venues to connect to those who cannot or do not access science in traditional ways.
This workshop series, convened by the Kavli, Rita Allen, Packard and Moore Foundations, was intended to view the entire system of people who support scientists’ engagement and communication efforts in order to explore how this system can be most effective and sustainable. The discussions examined where this system is thriving, the limits people within the system face and what can be done to ensure their efforts are commensurate with the demand for quality communication and engagement support.
Conducted over four closely scheduled workshops in late 2017 and early 2018, the convenings brought