Geotechnology Experiences for Students and Teachers

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，通过重点关注地理技术（也称为GIS或地理空间信息系统）职业，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。该项目的规划目标是让教师为高需求和高潜力学区的初高中学生提供先进的网络地理信息系统知识和技能，以激励学生追求正式的校本和非正式的校外教育体验。在社会认知职业发展理论和其他工作的指导下，项目研究将调查哪些项目经验有助于学生的动机和认知收益，以及哪些因素有助于教师将GIS内容整合到学校课程中。在为期三年的项目中，该项目每年将举办一次暑期教师工作坊和一次学生GIS夏令营。夏令营将包括到GIS相关行业和政府机构进行实地考察，并由这些组织的导师提供支持。工作坊及营会将协助师生学习地理资讯系统的概念及技能。教师还将学习在STEM和社会研究课程中整合GIS和职业相关的方法。参加夏令营的学生将获资助组织GIS课后社团。该项目将研究ITEST项目的指导性问题之一：哪些连贯的经验能有效和高效地支持学生的能力、动机和毅力，以便在今天和未来的stem相关劳动力中富有成效地参与？本项目将采用混合方法进行研究设计，包括准实验研究。该项目的研究成果将有助于教育工作者更好地理解和解决影响初中和高中课程中地理信息系统整合的背景和因素。

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 its focus on geotechnology (also called GIS or geospatial information systems) careers. The programmatic goal of this project is to prepare teachers to engage middle and high schools students in high-needs and high-potential school districts with cutting-edge web GIS knowledge and skills in order to motivate students to pursue formal school-based and informal out-of-school educational experiences. Project research, guided by social-cognitive career development theory and other work, will investigate what programmatic experiences contribute to student motivation and cognitive gains and what factors contribute to teacher integration of GIS content into the school curriculum.During three years of the project, the project will offer a summer teacher workshop and a student GIS summer camp each year, The camp will include field trips to GIS-related industry and government agencies, supported by mentors from these organizations. The workshop and camp will support teachers and students in learning GIS concepts and skills. Teachers will also learn approaches to integrate GIS- and career-related in STEM and social studies classes. Students who attended the summer camp will be supported in organizing a GIS after-school club. This project will research one of the guiding questions of the ITEST program: What coherent sets of experiences effectively and efficiently support student competency, motivation and persistence for productive participation in the STEM-related workforce of today and the future? The project will use mixed methods research design including a quasi-experimental study. Research findings from this project will help educators better understand and address the context and factors that influence integration of GIS in middle and high school curricula.