Informal STEM learning experiences (ISLEs), such as participating in science, computing, and engineering clubs and camps, have been associated with the development of youth’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics interests and career aspirations. However, research on ISLEs predominantly focuses on institutional settings such as museums and science centers, which are often discursively inaccessible to youth who identify with minoritized demographic groups. Using latent class analysis, we identify five general profiles (i.e., classes) of childhood participation in ISLEs from data
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Remy DouHeidi CianZahra HazariPhilip SadlerGerhard Sonnert
The Montshire Museum of Science in partnership with The Family Place will facilitate the program “Families Learning Together: Strengthening a Local System of Support for STEM Learning” for young parents and their children. Informed by a pilot partnership, the program will provide families with hands-on math and science instruction and informal learning opportunities. Programming for young parents ages 15 to 25 will develop their relevant academic knowledge and core life skills to prepare them for parenthood and the workplace. Participating families will receive free admission to accessible exhibits and programming.
In partnership with the Pasadena and Los Angeles Unified School Districts, the Armory Center for the Arts will develop and implement comprehensive visual art-math and visual art-science curricula for grades two through five at Title I elementary schools. The curricula will be developed in conjunction with Armory teaching artists and educators, and will align with the Common Core Standards for math and science, and with the National Core Visual Arts Standards. The museum will deliver the program in 48 classrooms over a three-year period. Professional development, paired with in-class program modeling, will enable participating teachers to implement arts integration strategies into their teaching practice, with an overall goal of creating a sustainable and long-term impact on student learning. An external evaluator will oversee program assessment in the schools. The museum will post sample lessons from each curriculum online to demonstrate the style and scope of the program for possible use by additional school districts.
This is a story about learning STEM content and practices while making objects. It is also a story about how that learning is contextualized in one young man’s disruption of racism simply by trying to learn how gears work. Our project, Investigating STEM Literacies in MakerSpaces (STEMLiMS), focuses on how adults and youth use representations to accomplish tasks in STEM disciplines in formal and informal making spaces (Tucker-Raymond, Gravel, Kohberger, & Browne, 2017). Making is an interdisciplinary endeavor that may involve mechanical and electrical engineering, digital literacies and
This AISL Pilots and Feasibility project will study the data science learning that takes place as members of the public explore and analyze open civic data related to their everyday lives. Government services, such as education, transportation, and non-emergency municipal requests, are becoming increasingly digital. Generally, program workshops and events may be able to support participants in using such data to answer their own questions, such as: "How do City agencies respond to noise in my neighborhood?" and "How do waste and recycling services in my neighborhood compare with others?" This project seeks to understanding how such programs are designed and facilitated to support diverse communities in accessing and meaningfully analyzing data will promote innovation and knowledge building in informal data science education. The team will begin by summarizing best practices in data science education from a variety of fields. Next they will explore the design and impacts of two programs in New York City, a leader in publicly available Open Data initiatives. This phase will explore activities and facilitation approaches, participants' objectives and data literacy skills practice, and begin to identify potential barriers to entry and levels of participation. Finally, the team will build capacity for other similar organizations to explore and understand their impacts on community members' engagement with civic data. This pilot study will establish preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of these programs, and in turn, inform future research into the identifying and amplifying best practices to support public engagement with data.
This research team will begin by synthesizing data science learning best practices based on varied literatures and surveys with academic and practitioner experts.
Synthesis results will be applied as a lens to gather preliminary evidence regarding the impacts of two programs on participants' data science practices and understanding of the nature of data in the context of civics. The programs include one offered by the Mayor's Office of Data Analytics (MODA), which is the NYC agency with overall responsibility for the City's Open Data programs, and BetaNYC, a leading nonprofit organization working to improve lives through civic design, technology, and engagement with government open data. The research design triangulates ethnographic observations and artifacts, pre and post adapted surveys, and interviews with participants and facilitators. Researchers will identify programmatic metrics and adapts existing measures to assess various outcomes related to public engagement with data, including: question formulation, data set selection and manipulation, the use of data to make inferences, and understanding variability, sampling and context. These metrics will be shared through an initial assessment framework for data science learning in the context of community engagement with civic open data. Researchers will also begin to identify barriers to broader participation through literature synthesis, interviews with participants and facilitators, and conversations with other organizations in our networks, such as NYC Community Boards. Findings will determine the suitability of the programs under study and inform future research to identify and amplify best practices in supporting public engagement with data.
This project is funded by the NSF Advancing Informal STEM Learning 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, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
This Pilots and Feasibility Studies 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.
Well-designed out-of-school time experiences can provide youth with rich opportunities to learn. However, to design effective out-of-school time experiences, it is critical to have a research basis that clarifies the features of programs that support increased youth engagement that then leads to better outcomes for youth. This project explores the features of programming that integrates sports, mathematics and science concepts, and growth mindset for 4th through 8th grade aged Latinx and African American youth. To accomplish this, the investigators refine curricular resources for out-of-school time programs and develop a model for professional learning experiences for informal educators and facilitators to support their implementation of integrated sports and STEM programming. To identify critical features of the programming, the researchers explore the ways that the program activities are implemented in two different contexts as well as the impact of the programming on youth participants' mindset, understanding of science and mathematics concepts, STEM interests, and self-perceived science and mathematics abilities. Additionally, researchers will explore the ways that the sports-themed programming supports (or could better support) girls' engagement.
The project builds on the University of Arizona researchers' existing partnerships with Major League Baseball (MLB) and Boys/Girls Club programs and an existing school-based MLB program for schools to (a) expand and refine Science of Baseball activities to enhance engagement among girls and incorporate growth mindset experiences that focus on the value of effort, determination, and learning from mistakes in both athletics and STEM; (b) study the enactment and outcomes of the program with 4th-8th grade aged youth in the two distinct informal learning settings; and (c) develop and refine a model for professional learning that includes in-person and on-line components for training informal STEM learning facilitators. The work will focus on two study contexts: afterschool programs of Boys and Girls Clubs in AZ, CA, and MO and summer programs of MLB in CA and MO. Participants will include 300 youth and up to 28 informal STEM learning facilitators split across the two contexts. Design-Based Implementation Research (DBIR) will be used to a) iteratively refine the activities and professional development model, and b) study the enactment and outcomes of the program. Research questions focus on outcomes for youth participants (i.e., impact on growth mindset, STEM dispositions, and understanding of science/math concepts), and the elements of effective professional development for informal STEM educators. Outcomes of the project include empirical evidence of what works and what doesn't work in the design, implementation, and professional development for STEM learning programs that integrate sports and growth mindset principles. In addition, outcomes of the project will advance knowledge of how different out-of-school program structures with similar sports-focused STEM programming can similarly (or differentially) support youth learning.
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. 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 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.
Children’s storybooks are a ubiquitous learning resource, and one with huge potential to support STEM learning. They also continue to be a primary way that children learn about the world and engage in conversations with family members, even as the use of other media and technology increases. Especially before children learn to read, storybooks create the context for in-depth learning conversations with parents and other adults, which are the central drivers of STEM learning and development more broadly at this age. Although there is a body of literature highlighting the benefits of storybooks
The Montana Girls STEM Collaborative brings together organizations and individuals throughout Montana who are committed to informing and motivating girls to pursue careers in STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The Collaborative offers professional development, networking and collaboration opportunities to adults who offer and/or support STEM programs for girls and other youth typically under-represented in STEM. The vision of Montana Girls STEM is that every young person in Montana has the opportunity to learn about STEM careers and feels welcome pursuing any dream they
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Suzi TaylorRay CallawayCathy Witlock
WNET, working with Education Development Center, will lead a small scale Innovations in Development effort to develop, research, and evaluate a new model to engage underserved families in STEM learning. The new endeavor, Cyberchase: Mobile Adventures in STEM, will build on the proven impact of the public media mathematics series Cyberchase and the growing potential of mobile technology and texting to reach underserved parents. WNET will produce two new Cyberchase episodes for 6-9 year olds, focused on using math to learn about the environment. Drawing on these videos and an existing Cyberchase game, the team will produce a bilingual family engagement campaign that will combine an in-person workshop followed by a 6-8 week "text to parent" campaign, in which parents receive weekly text messages suggesting family STEM activities related to the media content. The engagement model will be piloted in three cities with large low-income/Latino populations, along with one texting campaign offered without the workshop. This project will build knowledge about how to deploy well-designed public media assets and text messaging to promote fun, effective STEM learning interactions in low-income families. While past research on educational STEM media has tended to focus on children, especially preschool age, this project will focus primarily on text messaging for parents, and on learners age 6-9, and the wider scope of parent/child STEM interactions possible at that age.
The primary goal of the project will be to develop, test and refine a family engagement model that includes a face-to-face workshop, rich narrative Cyberchase content, and text-message prompts for parents to engage in short, playful STEM activities with children. The project team will explore which features of the mobile text-and-media program have most value for low-income and Latino families and prompt STEM learning interactions, including a comparison of workshop-based and text-only variants. The project will have three phases: needs assessment and preliminary design; an early-stage test in New York and development and testing of media; and three late-stage tests in contrasting locations, two including workshops and one "text-only," and analysis of findings. Ultimately, the project will share knowledge with the field about the opportunities and challenges of using mobile texting and public media to reach underserved families effectively. This knowledge will also inform a future proposal for production and outcomes research, which, based on the study results, may include a scaled-up version in ten locations and a ten-city Randomized Control Test. 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. 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.
The Art of Science Learning, Phase 2 was an NSF-funded research and development project to investigate the value of incorporating arts-based learning techniques in STEM-related group innovation processes. The project team created a new, arts-infused innovation curriculum in consultation with leading national practitioners in the arts, creativity, and innovation, then deployed that curriculum in “innovation incubators” in San Diego, Chicago, and Worcester (Mass.) in partnership with informal STEM institutions in those cities. At each incubator, diverse members of the public (from high school
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Peter LinettSteve ShewfeltNicole BaltazarNnenna OkekeDreolin FleisherEric LaPlantMadeline SmithChloe Chittick PattonSarah LeeHarvey Seifter
Front-line staff are an integral part of the visitor experience at museums and science centers across the country, facilitating activities and programs, leading classes, and more. But do these staff make a difference for visitor learning? And what are the most effective facilitation strategies and approaches? In 2013, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) received funding from the National Science Foundation for a three-year study, Researching the Value of Educator Actions for Learning (REVEAL), to begin to address these questions. Building on the Design Zone exhibition, REVEAL