Collaborative Research: Advancing Early STEM Learning Opportunities Through Tinkering and Reflection

在全国范围内，人们对加强科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）的参与有着极大的兴趣。为参与科学和工程实践提供丰富的机会，可能是培养更多对未来STEM教育和职业选择感兴趣和追求的年轻人骨干的关键。让孩子们参与这种探索和有趣的实验的一个特别有效的方法可能是通过学习经验，要求他们摆弄真实的物体和工具来制造和改造东西。修补是研究和教育实践的重要目标，至少有两个原因：(1)修补经验通常是社交的，涉及儿童与教育者和家庭成员互动，他们可以以各种方式支持stem相关的修补；(2)修补比许多其他类型的建筑经验（例如，拼图，制作模型飞机）更具开放性，因为它是参与者自己独特的问题和目标来指导活动。因此，修补为不同背景、环境、兴趣和专业知识的儿童和家庭提供了一个非常容易进入早期STEM学习的切入点。该研究服务于实践项目由推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划资助，该计划旨在推进非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。该项目将在芝加哥儿童博物馆的修补实验室展览中进行。这项研究将调查父母和孩子（6-8岁）在修补活动中的反思性互动如何最终影响孩子对STEM的参与。基于设计的研究（DBR）非常适合于迭代和上下文丰富的修补过程。使用DBR方法，研究人员和博物馆协调员将接受培训，以在家庭成员之间的不同时间点提示简单反思策略的变化，作为加强儿童参与和记忆这些共同修补事件的一种方式。通过逐步改进，每一轮测试都会产生新的假设，这些假设可以在随后的观察中得到验证。研究结构的操作化及其测量将有机地来自于修补实验室的家庭活动，并将在咨询委员会成员的协商下发展。数据收集策略将包括观察和访谈；将使用一系列编码方案来理解数据。这项研究将从理论上和实践上理解如何通过修补提高幼儿及其家庭对STEM的参与和学习。至少有350名儿童和他们的家庭将参与其中。该项目将为如何在非正式科学教育环境中促进STEM参与和学习提供急需的实证结果。它将为非正式科学学习从业者、家长和其他希望为儿童提供STEM学习机会的教育工作者提供有用的信息和资源。这项研究是由芝加哥洛约拉大学和西北大学的研究人员以及芝加哥儿童博物馆的工作人员和教育工作者合作进行的。

Nationally, there is tremendous interest in enhancing participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Providing rich opportunities for engagement in science and engineering practices may be key to developing a much larger cadre of young people who grow up interested in and pursue future STEM education and career options. One particularly powerful way to engage children in such exploration and playful experimentation may be through learning experiences that call for tinkering with real objects and tools to make and remake things. Tinkering is an important target for research and educational practice for at least two reasons: (1) tinkering experiences are frequently social, involving children interacting with educators and family members who can support STEM-relevant tinkering in various ways and (2) tinkering is more open-ended than many other kinds of building experiences (e.g., puzzles, making a model airplane), because it is the participants' own unique questions and objectives that guide the activity. Thus, tinkering provides a highly accessible point of entry into early STEM learning for children and families who do not all share the same backgrounds, circumstances, interests, and expertise. This Research-in-Service to Practice project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. The project will take place in the Tinkering Lab exhibit at Chicago Children's Museum. The research will investigate how reflective interactions between parents and children (ages 6-8) during tinkering activities ultimately impact child engagement in STEM. Design-based research (DBR) is well-suited to the iterative and contextually-rich process of tinkering. Using a DBR approach, researchers and museum facilitators will be trained to prompt variations of simple reflection strategies at different time points between family members as a way to strengthen children's engagement with, and memory of these shared tinkering events. Through progressive refinement, each cycle of testing will lead to new hypotheses that can be tested in the subsequent round of observations. The operationalization of study constructs and their measurement will come organically from families' activities in the Tinkering Lab and will be developed in consultation with members of the advisory board. Data collection strategies will include observation and interviews; a series of coding schemes will be used to make sense of the data. The research will result in theoretical and practical understanding of ways to enhance STEM engagement and learning by young children and their families through tinkering. A diverse group of at least 350 children and their families will be involved. The project will provide much needed empirical results on how to promote STEM engagement and learning in informal science education settings. It will yield useful information and resources for informal science learning practitioners, parents, and other educators who look to advance STEM learning opportunities for children. This research is being conducted through a partnership between researchers at Loyola University of Chicago and Northwestern University and museum staff and educators at the Chicago Children's Museum.