As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. Informal STEM learning opportunities are often rare in rural locations where the early childhood education system is also under-resourced. Through partnerships with educational researchers, early math educators, pediatric health experts, and pediatric clinics, this project will develop and study a new opportunity for informal math learning. The project will work with pediatric clinics that serve rural immigrant families who are racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse. The project leverages the high levels of trust many caregivers have in their child’s pediatrician to improve math learning during critical early years. This project will build on a previous program where physician text messages to caregivers supported youth literacy development. In this instance the project will support caregivers’ math interactions with their 3- and 4-year-olds to cultivate children's math knowledge and skills. The text messaging program will be grounded in research in child development, mathematics learning, parenting practices, and adult behavior change. Texts will also provide caregiver supports for how to engage their children in mathematical activates in their everyday lives and provide information about the important skills children are developing. Text messages will be co-developed with caregiver input, and focus on content underlying mathematical development such as Number Sense, Classification and Patterning, Measurement, Geometry, and Reasoning. Caregivers will receive text messages from their pediatric clinics three times a week for eight months. For example, three related texts supporting Number Sense include: “FACT: Kids enjoy counting and it prepares them for K! Mealtimes are a fun time to practice counting objects;” “TIP: At a meal, say: Can you count all the cups on the table? All the plates? What else can you count? (Forks) Tell them: Great job!” and “GROWTH: You are helping kids to count & get ready for K. At the park, ask: How many bikes are there? How many birds? Count together & find out!” Throughout the planning and implementation phases of the project the team will work closely with early education math experts, key advisors, and caregivers to ensure the text messaging program is tailored to meet the cultural, linguistic, and contextual needs of rural caregivers and children.
The project will research impacts of the text messaging program on children, caregivers, and clinical staff. First, the project will investigate the impact of the texting program on children through a randomized trial, and pre-and-post measures of early childhood math skills and abilities. Second, using interviews at baseline and in a 9-month follow-up, the project will study the texting program’s impact on caregivers’ perceptions regarding the importance of math learning for young children. Third, the project will explore the impact of the text messaging program on health professionals’ understanding of math learning in early childhood by collecting qualitative data and assessing attitudes about the clinic’s role in supporting early math. Caregivers and clinic staff will also participate in focus groups to better understand impacts for each of these groups. The project will reach 1000 families, who will be randomly assigned to treatment or control groups through block-randomization, stratified by caregiver language and child’s age. This parent-informed project will build evidence toward new approaches to promoting early math in the pediatric clinic, an informal environment that can reach all families and can leverage innovative technology. Findings will be shared widely though a communication and engagement plan that includes children, caregivers, physicians and clinic staff, informal STEM educators, researchers, and policy makers.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Lisa ChamberlainSusanna LoebJaime Peterson
In April 2018, FHI 360, under the leadership of Maryann Stimmer and Merle Froschl, convened a meeting of thought leaders in Washington, D.C. to capture a “snapshot” of STEM education. They subsequently conducted additional interviews with more than 50 local and national policy leaders; public and private funders; researchers; PreK-12 and post-secondary educators; parents, and leaders of afterschool programs, science centers and youth-serving organizations. The purpose of this summary report is to identify current trends and gaps to inform research, policy, and practice in order to reinforce
Many urban New Yorkers believe that the Hudson River is so polluted that nothing could possibly live there. In reality, the estuary is thriving, and The River Project (TRP), a marine science field station in lower Manhattan, exists to showcase its vast biodiversity through place-based education. In 2014, TRP began collaborating on a city-wide initiative with New York Harbor Foundation and eight other partner organizations to integrate restoration science into Title I middle school curricula through the Curriculum and Community Enterprise for Restoration Science (CCERS). Teachers in the
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Elisa CarefMelissa RexAnnie LederbergGaylen Moore
Informal science learning (ISL) organizations that are successful at providing meaningful science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) experiences for Latino children, youth, and their families share some common traits. They have leaders and staff who believe in the importance of developing culturally relevant models and frameworks that meet the needs and acknowledge the legacy of STEAM in Latino communities. Such organizations are willing to take risks to create experiences that are culturally meaningful, garner funding and implement programs by working closely with their
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Cheryl JuarezVerónika NúñezExploratorium
Community collaboration and empowerment was identified by the GENIAL organizers as an important theme to include in the Summit. Informal STEM learning (ISL) organizations strive to engage Latino audiences in their science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programming on a long-term basis and recognize the importance of understanding the needs, motivations, interests, and challenges of the diverse Latino community in the context of STEM participation. An effective way to collaborate with a community is to involve them as equal partners in the co-development of ISL experiences. A key
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Salvador AcevedoPaul DusenberyExploratorium
This position paper, co-authored Center for Childhood Creativity's Director Elizabeth Rood and Director of Research Helen Hadani, details the importance of exposing children ages 0-8 to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) experiences. The review of more than 150 empirical studies led Rood and Hadani to conclude that, despite what has been previously thought, modern research supports the understanding that children are capable of abstract thinking and STEM-learning from infancy, beginning before their first birthday.
The Roots of STEM Success, authored in support of classroom
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Helen Shwe HadaniElizabeth RoodAmy EisenmannRuthe FousheeGarrett JaegerGina JaegerJoanna KauffmannKatie KennedyLisa Regalla
In this case study, we highlight the work of the Bay Area STEM Ecosystem, which aims to increase equity and access to STEM learning opportunities in underserved communities. First, we lay out the problems they are trying to solve and give a high level overview of the Bay Area STEM Ecosystem’s approach to addressing them. Then, based on field observations and interviews, we highlight both the successes and some missed opportunities from the first collaborative program of this Ecosystem. Both the successes of The Bay Area STEM Ecosystem--as well as the partners’ willingness to share and examine
The Bay Area Regional Collaboration to Expand and Strengthen STEM (RECESS) is a regional, unified STEM continuum effort from preschool through graduate school and career. RECESS is based on successful collective impact efforts in other fields and employs a participatory action research (PAR) approach to broaden participation in STEM. In the PAR framework, youth and their families will help to define the issues and develop expertise about community needs through a shared research process.
RECESS introduces participatory action research as an innovative element to the collective impact social agency framework. The intent is to determine the extent to which the engagement and involvement of the students and communities targeted can effectively shape the function of the collective impact network of organizations.
During the two year planning phase, RECESS (a) conducts a comprehensive needs assessment and gap analysis; (b) establishes a functioning organization of stakeholders with a common agenda and governance model; and (c) develops a detailed action plan. It is a significant contribution to the body of knowledge on effective and innovative collective impact structures designed to promote STEM education and participation.
The achievement gap begins well before children enter kindergarten. Research has shown that children who start school having missed critical early learning opportunities are already at risk for academic failure. This project seeks to narrow this gap by finding new avenues for bringing early science experiences to preschool children (ages 3-5), particularly those living in communities with few resources. Bringing together media specialists, learning researchers, and two proven home visiting organizations to collaboratively develop and investigate a new model that engages families in science exploration through joint media engagement and home visiting programs. The project will leverage the popularity and success of the NSF-funded PEEP and the Big Wide World/El Mundo Divertido de PEEP to engage both parents and preschool children with science.
To address the key goal of engaging families in science exploration through joint media engagement and home visiting programs, the team will use a Design Based Implementation Research (DBIR) approach to address the research questions by iteratively studying the intervention model (the materials and implementation process) and assessing the impact of the intervention model on parents/caregivers. The intervention model will include the PEEP Family Engagement Toolkit that will support 20 weeks of family science investigations using new digital and hands-on science learning resources. It will also include new professional development resources for home educators as well as and the implementation process and strategies for developing and implementing the Toolkit with families.
The proposed research focuses first on refining and improving program design and implementation, and second, on investigating whether the intervention improves the capacity of parent/caregivers to support young children's learning in science. Ultimately this research will accomplish two important aims: it will inform the design of the PEEP family engagement intervention model, and, more broadly, it will build practical and theoretical understanding of: 1) effective family engagement models in science learning; 2) the types of supports that families and home educators need to implement these models; and 3) how to implement these models across different home visiting programs. Given the reach of the home visiting programs and the increasing interest in supporting early science learning the potential for broad impact is significant. This project 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.
The Art of Science Learning Project (AoSL) is a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded initiative, founded and directed by Harvey Seifter, that uses the arts to spark creativity in science education and the development of an innovative 21st century STEM workforce. This research was guided by three main hypotheses: (1) Arts-based innovation training, compared to traditional innovation training, improves an individuals creative thinking skills including critical thinking, divergent thinking, problem identification, convergent thinking and problem solving; (2) Arts-based innovation training
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. The Expanding Repertoires project is a collaboration between the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) and The Ohio State University (OSU) to begin the systematic study of science and children's museum programs and practice for preschool dual language learners (DLLs), their families, and the community organizations and early childhood professionals who serve them.