Making a Difference: Engaging Young People in Engineering and Computer Science through Computational Making and Social Entrepreneurship

有所作为：通过计算创造和社会创业让年轻人参与工程和计算机科学

• 批准号: 1759261
• 负责人: Katherine McMillan
• 金额: $ 119.89万
• 依托单位: New York Hall of Science
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-08-01 至 2023-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1759261&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Making; Difference; Engaging; Young; People

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase student motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM). This project will implement and research the effects of a nine-month, after-school Making program for 13-15 year olds from the New York Hall of Science's (NYSCI) immediate neighborhood of high-need recent immigrants. Building on lessons learned from NYSCI's ITEST-funded Innovation Institute on participant perceptions of computer science and engineering as STEM career pathways, the project will investigate: (1) How specific aspects of the program influence participant perceptions of the relevance, usefulness and accessibility of computer science and engineering as potential academic and career pathways, and(2) Through collaboration with NYSCI's INCLUDES-funded national network of out-of-school Maker Spaces, how to adapt, implement and study the revised version of the Innovation Institute at scale in future years.The proposed research will deepen understandings of factors, designs and practices that encourage and motivate students to pursue and persist in education programs or pathways that prepare them for STEM occupations. In the program, early adolescent immigrant youth will have the opportunity to deeply explore a social inequity in their community that is personally relevant to them and use the practices and problem-solving approaches of engineering and computer science to develop potential solutions for this issue. The hypothesis is that by developing solutions to a relevant community issue, participant perceptions of the utility of using engineering and computer science approaches will increase. The project will be well positioned to have a broader impact on multiple audiences because of the involvement of the NSF INCLUDES Designing for Diversity Network. In addition to the eight Maker Space sites, the Network also includes a National Leadership Team that represents corporate, philanthropic and non-profit organizations that are leaders in the Maker movement.Academically motivated but underrepresented youth, including immigrant youth, often place a high priority on pursuing careers that can help them to give back to their communities, but many of these youth do not perceive engineering and computer science to be relevant career pathways in relation to their desire to serve their communities. The project will investigate how informal education institutions can organize specific features of their programming to help young people make measurable shifts in their perceptions of the relevance, usefulness and accessibility of engineering and computer science as a potential career pathway that can help program participants address the social challenges that are of personal importance to them. This research project will be grounded in two implementations of a nine-month, out-of-school-time program, which will be organized around the theme of understanding and responding to quality of life issues in NYSCI's immediate neighborhoods through the use of computational tools to develop sustainable, high-impact solutions that benefit the community. The project will serve a total of 50-60 youth from NYSCI's immediate community, produce and disseminate program curriculum materials, and lay the groundwork for a scale-up implementation and study of the program via the NSF INCLUDES Designing for Diversity Network. The project's early stage research strategy includes a rich variety of qualitative and quantitative measures to develop evidence of promise that the revised Innovation Institute model has significant potential for success in a scale-up to other sites. Measures will include video observations, digital portfolios, pre-post participant interviews, and analysis of student design solutions.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.

该项目将推进学生和教师创新技术体验 (ITEST) 计划的工作，以更好地理解和促进提高学生在科学、技术、工程或数学 (STEM) 领域追求职业的动力和能力的实践。该项目将为来自纽约科学馆 (NYSCI) 紧邻高需求新移民的 13-15 岁儿童实施为期 9 个月的课后制作计划，并研究其效果。 基于 NYSCI 的 ITEST 资助的创新研究所关于参与者对计算机科学和工程作为 STEM 职业道路的看法的经验教训，该项目将调查：(1) 该计划的具体方面如何影响参与者对计算机的相关性、有用性和可访问性的看法科学和工程作为潜在的学术和职业道路，以及(2) 通过与 NYSCI 的 INCLUDES 资助的校外创客空间国家网络合作，如何适应、实施和研究创新的修订版未来几年将进行大规模研究。拟议的研究将加深对鼓励和激励学生追求并坚持为 STEM 职业做好准备的教育计划或途径的因素、设计和实践的理解。在该计划中，早期青少年移民青年将有机会深入探索社区中与他们个人相关的社会不平等，并利用工程和计算机科学的实践和解决问题的方法来开发该问题的潜在解决方案。 假设通过开发相关社区问题的解决方案，参与者对使用工程和计算机科学方法的效用的看法将会增加。由于 NSF INCLUDES Designing for Diversity Network 的参与，该项目将能够对多个受众产生更广泛的影响。除了八个创客空间站点外，该网络还包括一个国家领导团队，代表作为创客运动领导者的企业、慈善和非营利组织。有学术动机但代表性不足的青年，包括移民青年，通常会高度优先考虑追求能够帮助他们回馈社区的职业，但许多年轻人并不认为工程和计算机科学与他们服务社区的愿望相关。该项目将调查非正式教育机构如何组织其项目的具体特征，以帮助年轻人对工程和计算机科学作为潜在职业道路的相关性、有用性和可及性的看法发生可衡量的转变，从而帮助项目参与者解决社会问题。对他们个人来说很重要的挑战。该研究项目将以为期九个月的课外时间计划的两次实施为基础，该计划将围绕通过使用计算工具理解和应对 NYSCI 邻近社区的生活质量问题的主题进行组织制定造福社区的可持续、高影响力的解决方案。 该项目将为来自 NYSCI 直接社区的总共 50-60 名青少年提供服务，制作和传播项目课程材料，并为通过 NSF INCLUDES Designing for Diversity Network 扩大该项目的实施和研究奠定基础。该项目的早期研究策略包括丰富的定性和定量措施，以证明修订后的创新学院模型在扩展到其他地点方面具有巨大的成功潜力。 措施将包括视频观察、数字作品集、事前参与者访谈以及学生设计解决方案分析。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Analyzing Youth’s Problem Solving in Computational Making through a Community-Engaged Maker Program

通过社区参与的创客计划分析青少年在计算制作中解决问题的能力

• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: American Educational Research Association
• 作者: Zhang, E.

Getting it to Work: Exploring Student-Driven Problem Solving in Computational Making

让它发挥作用：探索计算制作中学生驱动的问题解决

• DOI: 10.1145/3386201.3386216
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: abLearn '20: Proceedings of the FabLearn 2020 - 9th Annual Conference on Maker Education
• 作者: Wallingford, Betty;Beheshti, Elham;Wells, David;Kirk, Danny;Vargas, L.;Stephen
• 通讯作者: Stephen

Exploring Different Facilitator Roles in Maker-based Learning

探索创客学习中不同的引导者角色

• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: International Society of the Learning Sciences
• 作者: Zhang, E.