RISES (Re-energize and Invigorate Student Engagement through Science) is a coordinated suite of resources including 42 interactive English and Spanish STEM videos produced by Children's Museum Houston in coordination with the science curriculum department at Houston ISD. The videos are aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards, and each come with a bilingual Activity Guide and Parent Prompt sheet, which includes guiding questions and other extension activities.
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resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Informal physics programs are understudied partly due to the broad spectrum of program structures and wide variety of activities. Moreover, the program facilitators hold diverse positions - faculty members at universities, staff members of national labs, and student leaders. In this study, we conduct an in-depth analysis of surveys and interviews from a subset of a national data set. Our goal is to develop and validate a practitioner-focused model of the key organizational components of informal physics programs. Based on the model of The Physics Teacher Education Program Analysis (PTEPA), we
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Dena IzadiBryan StanleyLily Boydclaudia fracchiollaKathleen Hinko
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Informal physics programs bring physicists together with youth and adults from local communities to engage with physics content outside of classroom settings. These public engagement or “physics outreach” programs are a significant endeavor of the physics community; however, we lack a systemic documentation of these efforts, which makes it difficult to situate physics education research on individual informal physics programs into a broader narrative. Additionally, informal physics programs have many formats and vary in terms of their audience, content, activities, and resources. It is
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Dena IzadiJulia WillisonNoah Finkelsteinclaudia fracchiollaKathleen Hinko
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
In this paper, we take an in-depth look at the physics faculty and student volunteers, which we will refer to as the program personnel, involved in informal physics programs to better understand their roles and responsibilities, their interactions with audiences, and their connectedness with content and activities. Understanding the complexities between programs, personnel, and audiences allows us to look for areas to improve informal physics programs in being inclusive, in being equitable and accessible, in supporting physics students who participate, and in connecting more strongly to the
The University of Montana spectrUM Discovery Area will implement “Making Across Montana” —a project to engage K–12 students and teachers in rural and tribal communities with making and tinkering. In collaboration with K–12 education partners in the rural Bitterroot Valley and on the Flathead Indian Reservation, the museum will develop a mobile making and tinkering exhibition and education program. The exhibition will be able to travel to K–12 schools statewide. The project team will develop a K–12 teacher professional development workshop, along with accompanying curriculum resources and supplies. The traveling program and related materials will build schools’ capacity to incorporate making and tinkering—and informal STEM experiences more broadly—into their teaching.
The Joseph Moore Museum at Earlham College will revise its interpreter training and educational programs to reflect current best practices in participatory STEM education. This project will include strengthening their programs to better prepare undergraduate educators, as well as updating the delivery of their top three requested programs to ensure learner-centered experiences. The project will include the development of a training program modeled on a combination of principles set out by the National Association of Interpretation and the Reflections on Practice program. Undergraduate educators will undergo systematic training in the fundamentals of educational theory and practice and benefit from a program of sustained evaluation and mentorship.
The Springfield Science Museum will increase participation in informal science learning by making its educational programs and learning spaces more accessible and inclusive. Museum staff will undergo Disability Inclusion and Universal Design training to redesign and enhance a core multi-use learning space and principle STEM program that can remove physical, cognitive, and social barriers to learning. External evaluators will measure access needs and learning outcomes before and after project upgrades in order to track progress and develop a scalable model of inclusive practice for all the museum’s science programming. The result will be an improved educational experience for visitors of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Katie Merrill
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Centering Native Traditional Knowledge within informal STEM education programs is critical for learning for Native youth. In co-created, place-based learning experiences for Native youth, interweaving cultural traditions, arts, language, and community partnerships is vital for authentic, meaningful learning. Standardized STEM curricula and Western-based pedagogies within the mainstream and formal education systems do not reflect the nature of Native STEM knowledge, nor do they make deep connections to it. The absence of this knowledge base can reinforce a deficit-based STEM identity, which can directly impact Native youths’ participation and engagement in STEM. Reframing STEM education for Native youth to prioritize the vitality of community and sustainability requires active consideration of what counts as science learning and who serves as holders and conduits of STEM knowledge. As highly regarded holders of traditional and western STEM knowledge, Native educators and cultural practitioners are critical for facilitating Native youths’ curiosity and engagement with STEM. This Innovations in Development project is Native-led and centers Native knowledge, voice, and contributions in STEM through a culturally based, dual-learning approach that emphasizes traditional and western STEM knowledge. Through this lens, a network of over a dozen tribal nations across 20 U.S. states will be established to support and facilitate the learning of Traditional and Western STEM knowledge in a culturally sustaining manner. The network will build on existing programs and develop a set of unique, interconnected, and synchronized placed-based informal STEM programs for Native youth reflecting the distinctive cultural aspects of Native American and Alaska Native Tribes. The network will also involve a Natives-In-STEM Role Models innovation, in which Native STEM professionals will provide inspiration to Native youth through conversations about their journeys in STEM within cultural contexts. In addition, the network will cultivate a professional network of STEM educators, practitioners, and tribal leaders. Network efforts and the formative evaluation will culminate in the development and dissemination of a community-based, co-created Framework for Informal STEM Education with Native Communities.
Together with Elders and other contributors of each community, local leads within the STEM for Youth in Native Communities (SYNC) Network team will identify and guide the STEM content topics, as well as co-create and implement the program within their sovereign lands with their youth. The content, practitioners, and programming in each community will be distinct, but the community-based, dual learning contextual framework will be consistent. Each community includes several partner organizations poised to contribute to the programming efforts, including tribal government departments, tribal and public K-12 schools, tribal colleges, museums and cultural centers, non-profits, local non-tribal government support agencies, colleges and universities, and various grassroots organizations. Programmatic designs will vary and may include field excursions, summer and after school STEM experiences, and workshops. In addition, the Natives-In-STEM innovation will be implemented across the programs, providing youth with access to Native STEM professionals and career pathways across the country. To understand the impacts of SYNC’s efforts, an external evaluator will explore a broad range of questions through formative and summative evaluations. The evaluation questions seek to explore: (a) the extent to which the culturally based, dual learning methods implemented in SYNC informal STEM programs affect Native youths’ self-efficacy in STEM and (b) how the components of SYNC’s overall theoretical context and network (e.g., partnerships, community contributors such as Elders, STEM practitioners and professionals) impact community attitudes and behaviors regarding youth STEM learning. Data and knowledge gained from these programs will inform the primary deliverable, a Framework for Native Informal STEM Education, which aims to support the informal STEM education community as it expands and deepens its service to Native youth and communities. Future enhanced professional development opportunities for teachers and educators to learn more about the findings and practices highlighted in the Framework are envisioned to maximize its strategic impact.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Juan ChavezDaniella ScaliceWendy Todd
The Discovery Museums will develop and implement a continuous improvement process to improve the impact of its STEM programming by strengthening staff skills in using evaluation data. The project will begin with a series of training sessions for learning programs staff based on feedback from youth regarding the quality of the museum's program delivery and an assessment of staff competencies in positive youth development. Participating staff will benefit from a deeper understanding of data and the ability to build ongoing evaluation and positive youth development practices into their program presentations in a way that supports Social-Emotional Learning outcomes. The project will potentially result in a process and set of tools to quantify the impact of STEM programming that can be shared with other informal learning organizations.
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum will amplify its partnership with Hart Magnet School, a Title 1 elementary school in urban Stamford, Connecticut, by increasing exposure and access to the arts for first-fifth graders, their families, and educators. A new program model, leveraging the museum's artist exhibitions, will focus on technology and an inquiry-based approach to science. Students, educators, and families will be encouraged to see and think in new ways through on-site STEAM tours at the museum, artist-led workshops at Hart, teacher professional development, and afterschool family activities. Outside evaluators will work with the project team to develop goals and associated metrics to measure how the model of museum-school partnership can enhance student achievement, engage families more deeply in their child's school experience and community, and contribute to teacher professional development. The evaluator will also train museum staff on best practices for program assessment.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Namulen Bayarsaihan
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Iteration is a central practice in art and science; however, it has yet to be deeply explored in STEAM learning environments. This study adopts a sociomaterial orientation (Fenwick and Edwards, 2013) to characterize the nature of iteration in one STEAM activity, an Optics Design Challenge, with informal educators. We found that iteration emerged as “microcycles” of interactions, specifically as adjustments, additions, and negotiations in both material artifacts and the narrative.