FUSE Studios: An Alternative Infrastructure for STEM Learning and Interest Development

FUSE Studios项目根据游戏设计原则为青年设计了一系列学习挑战，以：（1）开发和完善基于设计的迭代研发周期，以开发新的挑战和新的序列，并修改当前的挑战;（2）对这些新的非正式学习环境和参与者的学习经验进行原创性的多方面研究。 该项目回应了正规STEM教育实践未能以有意义的方式吸引青年，未能让青年走上STEM相关职业的可持续道路，并在晚年参与科学。 在拟议的三年项目中，基于青年计划的图书馆环境的试点工作和相关评估结果，该项目调查了解决持久性的研究问题，从失败中学习的能力，解决问题的创造性灵活性，以及选择作为发展兴趣和技能的强大指标。 项目挑战，称为FUSE工作室，旨在成为STEM学习和兴趣发展的替代结构。 FUSE Studios是围绕兴趣驱动的挑战序列组织的，这些挑战涉及数字和动手活动），这些活动以视频游戏序列为模型联系在一起。 参与者选择挑战序列（例如，机器人迷你高尔夫、MP3放大器、移动的应用程序开发、使用3D/CAD的珠宝设计）。 这项研究研究了参与者如何参与挑战序列的模式，以及他们在这样做时学到了什么。 参与者自由选择应对挑战的资源，这提供了一个独特的机会，研究参与者如何从FUSE工作室提供的各种人力资源、网络资源和物质资源中为挑战汇集资源。 该项目还研究了知识和实践如何在参与者之间传播。最后，研究将看看是否该项目？的方法迭代，设计为基础的研究过程逐步从事青年在干更广泛的代表性。 研究使用人种学和纵向研究，RFID/视频捕获数据，连接学习和其他方面的调查，以及网站生成的活动地图。

The FUSE Studios project designs a series of learning challenges for youth, derived from principles of game design, to: (1) develop and refine a design-based and iterative research and development cycle that will develop new challenges and new sequences, and revise current challenges; 2) conduct original, multi-faceted research on these new informal learning environments and the learning experiences of participants. The project responds to the failure of formal STEM education practices to engage youth in ways that are meaningful and that fail to engage youth on sustained pathways towards STEM-related careers and involvement in science in later life. In the proposed three year project, building upon pilot work and related evaluation findings from the library-based setting of the youth program, the project investigates research questions that address persistence, the capacity to learn from failure, creative flexibility in problem solving, and choice as powerful indicators of developing interest in and skills related to STEM. The project challenges, called FUSE Studios, are designed to be an alternative structure for STEM learning and interest development. FUSE Studios are organized around sequences of interest-driven challenges, that involve both digital and hands-on activities) that are linked together in a progression modeled after video-game sequences. Participants select a challenge sequence (e.g., robot mini-golf, MP3 amplifier, mobile app development jewelry design using 3D/cad). The research studies patterns of how participants engage with challenge sequences and what they learn when doing so. Participants freely choose resources for meeting the challenges, which provides a unique opportunity to study how participants assemble resources for challenges from the variety of human, web-based and material resources available in the FUSE studios. The project also researches how knowledge and practices circulate among participants. Finally, research will look at whether the project?s approach to iterative, design-based research processes progressively engages a broader representation of youth in STEM. Research uses ethnographic and longitudinal studies, RFID/video capture data, surveys of connected learning and other dimensions, and website-generated activity maps.