STEM Achievement in Baltimore Elementary Schools (SABES)

巴尔的摩小学的STEM成就（SABES）是核心合作伙伴约翰霍普金斯大学（JHU）和巴尔的摩市公立学校（BCPS）之间的合作伙伴关系，在社区内建立一个社区企业，用于STEM学习。支持合作伙伴包括大霍姆伍德社区公司、公园高地复兴、东南社区发展公司、希腊城社区发展公司、拉丁裔教育推广、儿童优先机构、巴尔的摩国家水族馆和马里兰科学中心。SABES是一种独特的STEM教育方法，通过参与BCPS 3-5年级的教师和学生、护理人员、社区组织、课后项目提供者、JHU的教师和学生、巴尔的摩高科技企业成员和当地博物馆，在目标社区建立STEM学习的专业知识和激情。SABES不仅直接与巴尔的摩三个高少数族裔、低收入社区的九所小学的大约40名STEM教师和1620多名3-5年级学生合作，而且还利用JHU、博物馆和STEM商业领袖的高等教育教师的专业知识，将其扩展到更广泛的社区。在此过程中，SABES在每个社区准备课后STEM项目促进者，以与参与者的生活相关的方式创造一种社区范围的STEM学习文化，让照顾者保持学生在课堂外的好奇心。支持SABES工作的一个基本前提是，将科学融入学习者的世界，而不是将学生带入科学家的世界，具有实现深度学习、自我效能和学生能动性的巨大潜力。基于这一观点，SABES在三个低收入、多数少数族裔社区建立了互利伙伴关系（MBPs），并采用了三种主要策略来实现其广泛参与科学、提高学生在STEM方面的成就和提高教师熟练程度的目标。这些策略是：(1)持续/协作的专业发展，包括专业学习社区；(2)将学校学习与STEM在社区中的应用联系起来的框架，包括两年一次的社区STEM认可活动，展示学生的STEM项目；(3)来自JHU和高科技行业的STEM访问专家，以及与实际职业相关的实地考察。SABES研究议程追求以下问题：1。如果影响评估显示一些预期的结果在期望的方向上受到了SABES的影响，而另一些则没有，那么从这些发现中可以得出什么样的理论构建或对教育改进努力和机制的整体理解？2. 建议的干预措施的哪些方面对于创建可持续的STEM社区最有效，而以前在校外几乎没有专业知识或有组织的活动？3. 在学生组成（例如，种族/民族和英语水平）、社区资源和基础设施以及学校组织的其他方面（例如，学校中可能与SABES竞争的其他高优先级计划，校长或教师的稳定性）不同的社区或学校之间，有效性如何变化？研究设计采用了多层次生态学视角的应用，这将导致与在社区中发展科学素养、将正式和非正式环境和结构作为发展科学教学和学习的资产的参与以及检查对成就的影响有关的重要发现，特别是与缩小不同种族、语言熟练程度和收入水平的学生之间的成就差距有关的影响。

STEM Achievement in Baltimore Elementary Schools (SABES), a Partnership between core partners Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS), works within neighborhoods to build a Community Enterprise for STEM Learning. Supporting Partners include the Greater Homewood Community Corporation, Park Heights Renaissance, Southeast Community Development Corporation, Greektown Community Development Corporation, Education Based Latino Outreach, Child First Authority, Baltimore National Aquarium, and the Maryland Science Center. SABES is a unique approach to STEM education that builds expertise and excitement for STEM learning within target communities by engaging BCPS teachers and students in grades 3-5, caregivers, community-based organizations, afterschool program providers, faculty and students from JHU, members of Baltimore's high-tech businesses, and local museums. SABES not only directly engages approximately forty STEM teachers and more than 1,620 grade 3-5 students at nine elementary schools in three high-minority, low-income, Baltimore neighborhoods, but it extends far into the wider community, drawing on the expertise of higher education faculty at JHU, museums and STEM business leaders. In the process, SABES prepares afterschool STEM project facilitators in each neighborhood, creating a community-wide culture of STEM learning relevant to the lives of its participants in ways that engage caregivers to sustain student curiosity outside of the classroom. A fundamental premise that undergirds SABES' work is that the integration of science into the learner's world, as opposed to bringing students into the world of scientists, has great potential to enable deep learning, self-efficacy and student agency. Grounded in this perspective, SABES establishes Mutually Beneficial Partnerships (MBPs) in three low-income, majority-minority communities and employs three main strategies to obtain its goals of broad participation in science, increased student achievement in STEM, and increased teacher proficiency. These strategies are: (1) sustained/collaborative professional development including professional learning communities, (2) scaffolds that bridge school learning with applications of STEM in the community including biannual community STEM Recognition Events featuring students' STEM projects, and (3) STEM visiting experts from JHU and high-tech industries as well as field trips linked to careers in action.The SABES research agenda pursues the following questions: 1. If the impact evaluation shows that some intended outcomes are affected in desired directions by SABES, but others not, what theory-building or holistic understandings of educational improvement efforts and mechanisms can emerge from these findings? 2. What aspects of the proposed intervention are most effective for creating a sustainable STEM community where previously there exists little expertise or organized activity outside the school? 3. How does effectiveness vary between neighborhoods or schools that differ in student composition (e.g., race/ethnicity, and English language proficiency), neighborhood resources and infrastructure, and other aspects of school organization (e.g., other high-priority initiatives in a school that might compete with SABES for staff attention, stability of principal or teacher incumbency)? The research design employs the application of a multi-level, ecological perspective which will result in important findings related to developing science literacy in a community, engagement of formal and informal settings and structures as assets for developing teaching and learning in science, and examining the impacts on achievement, particularly related to closing the achievement gap among students of different ethnicities, language proficiencies and income levels.