Creating a Virtual Infrastructure for Engaging Rural Youth in STEM Disciplines through Computer Science

该项目将推进学生和教师创新技术体验 (ITEST) 计划的工作，通过开发和研究一种教育干预措施，让农村青年通过流行的视频游戏接触计算机科学和数学概念，从而更好地理解和推广提高学生在科学、技术、工程或数学 (STEM) 领域追求职业的动力和能力的实践。 该项目使用已经吸引了超过 1 亿用户的 Minecraft 软件环境作为向中学生教授数学和计算概念的平台。将开发课程和评估“徽章”来激励和教导年轻人。研究将研究在校内环境和课后环境中通过 4-H 实施课程如何影响青少年的数学和编程知识、他们对 STEM 职业的态度和倾向以及标准化考试成绩。该项目建议使用 LearnToMod for Minecraft 来吸引农村中学生（5 至 8 年级）编程、空间推理和解决问题的技能。 LearnToMod 将在约 80 名 4-H Extension 参与者和 80 名在校参与者中进行试点，然后通过五次课程细化，启动更大规模的实施，以覆盖城乡地区总共约 1000 名学生。将使用案例研究、参与日志、教师和学生调查、项目开发的徽章和嵌入式评估以及来自缅因州教育部州纵向数据系统的标准化测试数据来检查结果。该项目将使用多级混合模型来识别与学生和教师的不同使用和参与模式相关的特定学校特征。类似的分析将使用学校层面的变量和特征，例如贫困、资源获取、现有 STEM 计划/活动等，作为报告的教师态度和行为的实施和变化的预测因素，例如将计算机科学纳入 STEM 领域。这些分析将重点关注参与学生和教师的行为与学校层面的特征或人口统计之间的跨层次互动/调节关系（例如，哪些类型的计算机编程活动或技能与低收入学校与高收入学校的最大变化相关？）。该合作伙伴关系由缅因大学的教育和计算机科学研究人员、非营利组织 ThoughtSTEM、UMaine Cooperative Extension (4-H)、Network Maine 州网络基础设施项目和缅因州教育部组成。教育部学习技术计划 (MLTI) 以及 K-12 合作伙伴。 K-12 合作伙伴包括 Western Foothills Regional School Unit、Eastern Maine AOS、Bangor School Department、Southern Maine SAD Cumberland 和 North Yarmouth 以及缅因州虚拟学院。正式评估将由独立研究机构TERC 进行。

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by developing and studying an educational intervention for rural youth to engage with computer science and math concepts through a popular videogame. This project uses the software environment Minecraft, which has already attracted over 100 million users, as a platform for teaching middle schoolers about math and computing concepts. Curriculum and assessment 'badges' will be developed to motivate and teach youth. Research will study how implementing the curriculum in in-school settings, and in afterschool settings through 4-H, influences youngsters' knowledge of math and programming, their attitudes and inclination to STEM careers, and their standardized test scores.This project proposes to use LearnToMod for Minecraft to engage rural middle school learners (5th to 8th grades) in programming, spatial reasoning, and problem-solving skills. LearnToMod will be piloted with approximately 80 4-H Extension participants and 80 in-school participants, and then a larger implementation will be launched to involve a total of approximately 1000 students in urban and rural areas through five more iterations of curricular refinement. Outcomes will be examined using case studies, participation logs, teacher and student surveys, the badges and embedded assessments developed by the project, and standardized test data from the Maine Department of Education's State Longitudinal Data System. The project will use multi-level mixture modeling to identify specific school characteristics that are associated with different usage and engagement patterns by both students and teachers. Similar analyses will use school-level variables and characteristics, such as poverty, access to resources, existing STEM programs/activities, etc., as predictors of implementation and change in reported teacher attitudes and behavior, such as incorporation of computer science into STEM areas. These analyses will focus on the cross-level interaction/moderator relationships between behaviors of participating students and teachers and school-level characteristics or demographics (e.g., what types of computer programming activities or skills are associated with the greatest change specifically in low-versus-high income schools?).The partnership consists of education and computer science researchers at the University of Maine, the nonprofit ThoughtSTEM, UMaine Cooperative Extension (4-H), the Network Maine state cyberinfrastructure project and the Maine Department of Education's Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI), plus K-12 partners. K-12 partners include the Western Foothills Regional School Unit, Eastern Maine AOS, Bangor School Department, Southern Maine SAD Cumberland and North Yarmouth, and the Maine Virtual Academy. Formal evaluation will be conducted by TERC, an independent research organization.