Combining Media and Messaging to Engage Underserved Families in STEM Learning: A Study

WNET将与教育发展中心合作，领导一项小规模的发展创新努力，以开发、研究和评估一种新模式，让服务不足的家庭参与STEM学习。这项新的努力名为Cyberchase：STEM中的移动冒险，将建立在公共媒体数学系列Cyberchase经过验证的影响以及移动技术和短信日益增长的潜力的基础上，以接触到服务不足的父母。WNET将为6-9岁的儿童制作两集新的Cyberchase节目，重点是使用数学来了解环境。利用这些视频和现有的Cyberchase游戏，该团队将制作一个双语家庭参与活动，其中将包括一个面对面的研讨会，然后是一个为期6-8周的“给父母发短信”活动，在这个活动中，父母每周都会收到建议与媒体内容相关的家庭STEM活动的短信。参与模式将在三个低收入/拉美裔人口较多的城市进行试点，同时还将在没有研讨会的情况下提供一项短信活动。这个项目将建立关于如何部署精心设计的公共媒体资产和文本消息的知识，以促进低收入家庭有趣、有效的STEM学习互动。虽然过去对教育STEM媒体的研究倾向于关注儿童，特别是学龄前儿童，但这个项目将主要关注为家长和6-9岁的学习者发送的短信，以及在这个年龄段可能发生的更广泛的亲子STEM互动。该项目的主要目标将是开发、测试和完善一种家庭参与模式，其中包括面对面的研讨会、丰富的叙事性网络追逐内容和短信提示，供父母与孩子进行简短、有趣的STEM活动。项目团队将探索移动文本和媒体计划的哪些功能对低收入和拉丁裔家庭最有价值，并促进STEM学习互动，包括比较基于研讨会的变体和仅基于文本的变体。该项目将分为三个阶段：需求评估和初步设计；在纽约进行的早期测试以及媒体的开发和测试；以及在不同地点进行的三个后期测试，其中两个包括讲习班和一个“纯文本”测试，并对结果进行分析。最终，该项目将与该领域分享有关使用移动短信和公共媒体有效接触服务不足的家庭的机会和挑战的知识。这些知识还将为未来的生产和结果研究提供建议，根据研究结果，可能包括在十个地点的扩大版和十个城市的随机对照测试。该项目由推进非正式STEM学习计划(AISL)资助，该计划旨在促进对非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。这包括为扩大获得和参与STEM学习经验提供多种途径，推进对非正式环境中STEM学习的创新研究和评估，以及加深参与者对更深层次学习的理解。

WNET, working with Education Development Center, will lead a small scale Innovations in Development effort to develop, research, and evaluate a new model to engage underserved families in STEM learning. The new endeavor, Cyberchase: Mobile Adventures in STEM, will build on the proven impact of the public media mathematics series Cyberchase and the growing potential of mobile technology and texting to reach underserved parents. WNET will produce two new Cyberchase episodes for 6-9 year olds, focused on using math to learn about the environment. Drawing on these videos and an existing Cyberchase game, the team will produce a bilingual family engagement campaign that will combine an in-person workshop followed by a 6-8 week "text to parent" campaign, in which parents receive weekly text messages suggesting family STEM activities related to the media content. The engagement model will be piloted in three cities with large low-income/Latino populations, along with one texting campaign offered without the workshop. This project will build knowledge about how to deploy well-designed public media assets and text messaging to promote fun, effective STEM learning interactions in low-income families. While past research on educational STEM media has tended to focus on children, especially preschool age, this project will focus primarily on text messaging for parents, and on learners age 6-9, and the wider scope of parent/child STEM interactions possible at that age.The primary goal of the project will be to develop, test and refine a family engagement model that includes a face-to-face workshop, rich narrative Cyberchase content, and text-message prompts for parents to engage in short, playful STEM activities with children. The project team will explore which features of the mobile text-and-media program have most value for low-income and Latino families and prompt STEM learning interactions, including a comparison of workshop-based and text-only variants. The project will have three phases: needs assessment and preliminary design; an early-stage test in New York and development and testing of media; and three late-stage tests in contrasting locations, two including workshops and one "text-only," and analysis of findings. Ultimately, the project will share knowledge with the field about the opportunities and challenges of using mobile texting and public media to reach underserved families effectively. This knowledge will also inform a future proposal for production and outcomes research, which, based on the study results, may include a scaled-up version in ten locations and a ten-city Randomized Control Test. This 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. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.