In 2018, the Croucher Foundation conducted its third annual mapping exercise for the out-of-school STEM learning ecosystem in Hong Kong.
The study reveals a rich and vibrant ecosystem for out-of-school STEM in Hong Kong with over 3,000 discrete activities covering a very wide range of science disciplines. This third report indicates extremely rapid growth in available out-of-school STEM activities compared to 2016 and an even larger increase in the number of organisations offering out-of-school STEM activities in Hong Kong.
STEM educators are eager to foster long term collaboration with
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Siu Po LeeDavid FosterThe Croucher Foundation
This report details the results of a five-year longitudinal study on the Explainer program at the Exploratorium. Explainers from the summer 1999, fall 1999 and spring 2000 cohorts were interviewed before and after their first semester of work as an Explainer, then followed up with additional interviews three more times at intervals of from one to three years. Additional supplemental data were gathered from a larger set of Explainers via surveys that were administered to these same cohorts before and after their first semester of work, and to a set of Explainer alumni who had been out of the
An in-depth case study of one of America’s first STEM Learning Ecosystems in Tulsa, Oklahoma, conducted by researchers at The PEAR Institute: Partnerships in Education and Resilience, finds that strong leadership, deep partnerships, and data-informed methods have led to the creation of diverse, high-quality, STEM-rich learning opportunities for Tulsa’s youth. Additionally, these efforts improved the capacity of STEM educators through high-quality professional development and supported youth pathways to STEM careers by increasing mentoring opportunities for STEM professionals.
These findings
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kristin Lewis-WarnerPatricia AllenGil Noam
“Reclaiming Digital Futures” is a free guide and associated website for youth organizations to use as they integrate digital learning into their programming and practices. The report is available at DigitalLearningPractices.org.
The report and the associated DigitalLearningPractices.org site contain a cross-section of resources to aid organizations and educators in developing quality programming that integrate technology and youth development. Rather than focusing on efforts to help youth become fluent and skilled in uses of technology simply for the sake of meeting predetermined standards
How do we support continued engagement in creative production, even after youth leave our events and programs? As youth development educators and learning scientists interested in supporting long-term, interest driven learning around digital media, we took a crack at this problem, and we hope the lessons we share in this design case study might advance the ways that informal education organizations could think about promoting learning pathways that span contexts. The report we share here documents a series of design experiments that Mouse and Hive Research Lab collaborated on within the
In this research study, we explore the ways that youth engage in “interest signaling”, actions youth undertake that communicate their needs in ways that motivate adults and peers to mobilize resources to support them. We highlight how interest signaling is a key factor driving the process of brokering – signals are critical mechanisms for adults to understand what youth interests and expertise are, and, thus, be able to act as effective learning brokers. Through observing after-school digital media-making programs, and interviews we conducted with focal youth, program staff, and other support
This article makes a case for the importance of brokering future learning opportunities to youth as a programmatic goal for informal learning organizations. Such brokering entails engaging in practices that connect youth to events, programs, internships, individuals and institutions related to their interests to support them beyond the window of a specific program or event. Brokering is especially critical for youth who are new to an area of interest: it helps them develop both a baseline understanding of the information landscape and a social network that will respond to their needs as they
Brokering Youth Pathways was created to share tools and techniques around the youth development practice of “brokering” or connecting youth to future learning opportunities and resources.
This toolkit shares ways in which various out-of-school educators and professionals have approached the challenge of brokering. It provides a framework, practice briefs and reports that focus on a particular issue or challenge and provide concrete examples, as well as illustrate how project partners partners worked through designing new brokering routines in partnership with a research team.
MobiLLab is a mobile science education program designed to awaken young people’s interest in science and technology (S&T). Perceived novelty, or unfamiliarity, has been shown to affect pupils’ educational outcomes at similar out-of-school learning places (OSLePs) such as museums and science centers. A study involved 215 mobiLLab pupils who responded to three surveys: a pre-preparation, at-visit, and post-visit survey. Results provide evidence for four dimensions of pupils’ at-visit novelty: curiosity, exploratory behavior, oriented feeling, and cognitive load. Findings also show that classroom
In this literature review, we seek to understand in what ways aspects of computer science education and making and makerspaces may support the ambitious vision for science education put forth in A Framework for K-12 Science as carried forward in the Next Generation Science Standards. Specifically, we examine how computer science and making and makerspace approaches may inform a project-based learning approach for supporting three-dimensional science learning at the elementary level. We reviewed the methods and findings of both recently published articles by influential scholars in computer
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Samuel SeveranceSusan CodereEmily MillerDeborah Peek-BrownJoseph Krajcik
Concord Evaluation Group (CEG) conducted an outreach partner evaluation for Design Squad Global (DSG). DSG is produced and managed by WGBH Educational Foundation. WGBH partnered with FHI360, a nonprofit human development organizations working in 70 countries, to implement DSG around the globe.
In the DSG program, children in afterschool and school clubs explored engineering through hands-on activities, such as designing and building an emergency shelter or a structure that could withstand an earthquake. Through DSG, children also had the chance to work alongside a partner club from another