Category Archives: Practioners

Studying Science Curiosity and Computational Thinking in an eTextile Upward Bound Curriculum

This project will examine and iteratively improve the design of a youth-centered 30-hour summer school curriculum that will engage high school students in making e-textiles (i.e., wearable technologies). The research builds on an existing curriculum (STEAM-Maker) that, when piloted, showed a promising capacity to improve participants’ computational thinking. In addition to studying the impact of the revised curriculum on computational thinking, the current project will assess the curriculum?s impact on: science curiosity; affinity for science, technology, and engineering; youths’ self-perceptions as computational professionals; and increased knowledge of and/or interest in STEM-related careers and pursuits. This work will solidify a research-practice partnership in two states with the youth-serving organization, Upward Bound. The project will work with 60 youth in Upward Bound summer camps in Pennsylvania and Michigan, and employ computer science and engineering graduates involved in wearable technology industries (e.g., biomedical devices, fitness trackers, robotics, and smart fabrics) as near-peer mentors during the program. The mentors have been recruited to challenge typical stereotypes about who can create technology, and will be trained in anti-racist and equity-based mentorship practices. The project will produce a refined curriculum which will be shared with high school summer camp providers, with the intent to broaden participation of Black and Hispanic/Latinx youth in STEAM-Maker camps.

The research will support further theorization around the linkages between curiosity, computational thinking, STEM career interest, and science curiosity. Data will include video of youths’ engagement with activities; learners’ artifacts; validated surveys of science curiosity, STEM career interest, and computational thinking; and surveys of post-program engagement with making. Analysis includes qualitative coding of artifacts, micro-ethnographic analysis of youth engagement, learning and innovation, and statistical analysis of quantitative data including affect surveys (using location, gender, and race/ethnicity as variables). The intellectual merit of the project rests in the development of design principles for encouraging science curiosity, career interest, and computational thinking in youth-centered making experiences. This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing youths’ knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers. This project is co-funded by the CS for All: Research and RPPs program.

Heather to chair AERA’s Informal Learning Environments Research group for 2019-20

Heather is chairing AERA’s Informal Learning Environments Research group for 2019-2020. The group is dedicated to furthering educational research in informal learning environments and to promote a community practice interested in establishing and maintaining a better understanding of learning in multiple out-of-school time environments. Members are researchers and practitioners focusing on equity, inclusion, and access to learning in libraries, museums, community-based organizations, hobbies, outdoor education, and everyday settings.

To join AERA, click here to purchase your membership!

 

Informal Learning Environments Research
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Our purpose is to further educational research in informal learning environments and to promote a community practice interested in establishing and ma…
 

Check out STEM Pillars 3-min video!

Our team is highlighting our IMLS-funded STEM Pillars project on the STEM for All Video Hall.  Our 3-minute video describes our design-based research project where we are working with rural libraries and museums to create programs to help smaller institutions serve their communities.

STEM Pillars 3-minute video

 

Heather, Susan, and team awarded IMLS grant to investigate learning in rural libraries and museums

Our team from Penn State’s College of Education in partnership with the Schlow Centre Region Library, the Centre County Library, Discovery Space of Central Pennsylvania, and Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center received a federal research grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.  Together, we will explore how to best support family science learning as we work with STEM professionals from Penn State University, local businesses, and a rural county agency.

The project will use design-based research methods to iteratively develop family workshops on five personally relevant science themes that foster science conversations and intergenerational learning:

  • Engineering my World (engineering)
  • Weather Where I am (meteorology)
  • Water Quality in my Community (toxicology, watershed monitoring)
  • Plants around Us (botany, genetics, pollination)
  • My Happy Valley Sky (astronomy)

The research team will examine questions including, How can intergenerational library and museum experiences use STEM expert narratives effectively to make the science present in the community more visible and relevant? The project will result in a model for personally relevant informal education that brings together community science topics, hands-on inquiry, and personal stories from STEM experts in order to help museum and library professionals learn where and how to place STEM experts’ stories within programs; engage parents in their children’s learning; and position children as knowledge builders in STEM content areas.   

Heather & Chris presenting at Open Badges in Education workshop

On Monday, March 26, 2015, Chris & Heather are presenting on  an digital badges with their paper An Online Badging System Supporting Educators’ STEM Learning at Workshop on Open Badges in Education in Poughkeepsie, New York, USA.  Download the paper here: Gamrat_Zimmerman_2015_OBIE_Workshop_Long_Paper [pdf].

In our paper, we investigate how a digital badging system was used as part of an informal (i.e., not-for-credit) professional development project. Teacher Learning Journeys was designed for personalized science learning for educators in K-12 schools, museums, universities, and teaching colleges through employing two levels of micro-credentials: lower achievement digital stamps and higher achievement digital badges. We conducted a qualitative collective case study centered on 36 teachers; the primary data were records from learners’ interactions within the digital badge system; secondary data came from a survey at the end of the experience and two interviews with 11 focal teachers. Our findings suggest the following design principles: (a) two levels of assessment can support personalized learning, (b) mastery of learning can be demonstrated and assessed through reflective logs, (c) collaboration during and after badging activities can provide value to the learners, and (d) establishment of relevance of badging experiences can support the application of content outside the badging system.