Conference: Research Infrastructure for Informal STEM Education

会议：非正式 STEM 教育的研究基础设施

• 批准号: 2335009
• 负责人: Christine Reich
• 金额: $ 7.7万
• 依托单位: Knology Ltd.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-02-01 至 2025-01-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2335009&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Conference; Research; Infrastructure; Informal; STEM

The Research Infrastructure for Informal STEM Education conference will bring together education researchers, product developers, funders, and community organizations to develop a conceptual plan for new infrastructure that supports research on equitable informal STEM learning. Equitable participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is essential if all our nation’s communities are to thrive. Yet, many barriers still exist that prevent equitable participation from becoming a reality. Informal science learning—such as educational gaming, out-of-school time programming, science museums, and media—can offer a pathway for reducing inequities in STEM if they are designed with community needs and interests in mind. One factor that prevents the design of equitable informal STEM learning experiences is the echo chamber that occurs through the study of these experiences. Research often focuses on the existing or the most invested audiences in these settings, and the voices of underrepresented communities can be absent. Increasing equity in STEM participation means increasing equity among those contributing to and participating in STEM learning research. To address this, many scholars have called for approaches to informal STEM learning research that emphasize collaborations between researchers, practitioners, and community partners. The conference will address historic inequities in informal science learning by bringing together 25 key stakeholders to discuss the research infrastructure needed to support the study of equity-focused informal STEM learning. In addition, over 100 informal STEM learning researchers and product developers, community-based organizations, public institutions, and philanthropic foundations will be invited to contribute to the discussion through pre and post conference activities. The two-day virtual conference will be designed to answer one overarching question: What building blocks are needed in research infrastructure so that it advances the equity aims of informal science learning researchers, practitioners, and community-based organizations? To answer this question, the first day of the conference will feature activities designed to advance participants’ understanding of each other's STEM equity aims through engaged dialogue. Participants will also share existing resources for achieving these aims. On the second day, participants will identify the necessary elements of the proposed national infrastructure—for example, the identification of community-based sites for research, the establishment of shared instruments appropriate to community settings, and the creation of a database that provides direct connections between community organizations and researchers. Following the conference, the project team will synthesize the findings into a digital multimedia report that will be available through Knology’s website and at informalscience.org.This project is supported through a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and the Walton Family Foundation. Funding is also provided by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) Program at NSF.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.

非正式 STEM 教育研究基础设施会议将汇集教育研究人员、产品开发商、资助者和社区组织，制定新基础设施的概念计划，支持公平参与科学、技术、工程和数学的非正式 STEM 学习研究。如果我们所有国家的社区要蓬勃发展，STEM（科学、技术、工程和数学）是必不可少的，但仍然存在许多阻碍公平参与成为现实的障碍，例如教育游戏、课外时间规划、科学博物馆等。媒体——可以提供如果在设计时考虑到社区的需求和利益，那么这是一种减少 STEM 不平等的途径。阻碍公平的非正式 STEM 学习体验设计的一个因素是通过对这些体验的研究而产生的回声室。或在这些环境中投入最多的受众，而代表性不足的社区的声音可能会缺席。增加 STEM 参与的公平性意味着增加那些贡献和参与 STEM 学习研究的人的公平性。为了解决这个问题，许多学者呼吁采取非正式的方法。 STEM 学习研究会议将强调研究人员、从业者和社区合作伙伴之间的合作，通过召集 25 个主要利益相关者讨论支持以公平为中心的非正式 STEM 学习所需的研究基础设施，解决非正式科学学习中历史上的不平等问题。非正式的 STEM 学习研究人员和产品开发人员、社区组织、公共机构和慈善基金会将受邀通过会议前后的活动参与讨论，为期两天的虚拟会议旨在回答一个首要问题：什么。建筑为了回答这个问题，会议第一天将举办旨在促进参与者相互理解的活动。通过参与对话，参与者还将共享现有资源以实现 STEM 公平目标。第二天，参与者将确定拟议的国家基础设施的必要要素，例如确定基于社区的研究场所、建立。适合社区环境的共享工具，并创建一个数据库会议结束后，项目团队将把研究结果综合成数字多媒体报告，该报告将通过 Knology 网站和 informativescience.org 提供。该项目得到了 Bill & Melinda 的合作支持。盖茨基金会、施密特期货和沃尔顿家族基金会也由 NSF 的推进非正式 STEM 学习 (AISL) 计划提供资金。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用评估被认为值得支持。基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。