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

该项目将推进“面向学生和教师的创新技术体验”（ITEST）项目的工作，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，更好地理解和促进提高学生在科学、技术、工程或数学（STEM）领域追求职业的动机和能力的实践。该项目使用已经吸引了超过1亿用户的软件环境“我的世界”，作为一个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”，以激励和教育青年。研究将研究如何通过4-H在校内和课外环境中实施课程，影响青少年对数学和编程的知识，他们对STEM职业的态度和倾向，以及他们的标准化考试成绩。该项目建议使用LearnToMod for Minecraft来吸引农村中学学习者（5至8年级）学习编程、空间推理和解决问题的技能。LearnToMod将在大约80名4-H扩展参与者和80名校内参与者中进行试点，然后将通过五次以上的课程改进，启动更大规模的实施，让城市和农村地区的大约1000名学生参与其中。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缅因州教育部国家纵向数据系统的标准化测试数据来检查结果。该项目将使用多层次混合建模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，如贫困、资源获取、现有的STEM项目/活动等，作为报告中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。这些分析将侧重于参与的学生和教师的行为与学校层面的特征或人口统计学之间的跨层面互动/调节关系（例如，哪些类型的计算机编程活动或技能与最大的变化相关，特别是在低收入和高收入学校？）。合作伙伴包括缅因大学的教育和计算机科学研究人员、非营利组织ThoughtSTEM、缅因合作推广（4-H）、网络缅因州网络基础设施项目和缅因教育部的学习技术倡议（MLTI），以及K-12合作伙伴。K-12合作伙伴包括西部山麓地区学校单位，缅因州东部AOS，班戈学校部门，缅因州南部坎伯兰和北雅茅斯SAD，以及缅因州虚拟学院。正式的评估将由独立的研究机构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.