Collaborative Research: Making Space for Story-Based Tinkering to Scaffold Early Informal Engineering Learning

协作研究：为基于故事的修补创造空间，为早期非正式工程学习提供支架

• 批准号: 1906808
• 负责人: David Uttal
• 金额: $ 39.63万
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1906808&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Making; Space; Story

This project responds to calls to increase children's exposure and engagement in STEM at an early age. With the rise of the maker-movement, the informal and formal education sectors have witnessed a dramatic expansion of maker and tinkering spaces, programs, and curricula. This has happened in part because of the potential benefits of tinkering experiences to promote access and equity in engineering education. To realize these benefits, it is necessary to continue to make and iterate design and facilitation approaches that can deepen early engagement in disciplinary practices of engineering and other STEM-relevant skills. This project will investigate how stories can be integrated into informal STEM learning experiences for young children and their families. Stories can be especially effective because they bridge the knowledge and experiences young children and their caregivers bring to tinkering as well as the conversations and hands-on activities that can extend that knowledge. In addition, a unique contribution of the project is to test the hypothesis that stories can also facilitate spatial reasoning, by encouraging children to think about the spatial properties of their emerging structures. This project uses design-based research methods to advance knowledge and the evidence base for practices that engender story-based tinkering. Using conjecture mapping, the team will specify their initial ideas and how it will be evident that design/practices impact caregivers-child behaviors and learning outcomes. The team will consider the demographic characteristics, linguistic practices, and funds of knowledge of the participants to understand the design practices (resources, activities) being implemented and how they potentially facilitate learning. The outcome of each study/DBR cycle serves as inputs for questions and hypotheses in the next. A culturally diverse group of 300+ children ages 5 to 8 years old and their parents at Chicago Children's Museum's Tinkering Lab will participate in the study to examine the following key questions: (1) What design and facilitation approaches engage young children and their caregivers in creating their own engineering-rich tinkering stories? (2) How can museum exhibit design (e.g., models, interactive displays) and tinkering stories together engender spatial thinking, to further enrich early STEM learning opportunities? and (3) Do the tinkering stories children and their families tell support lasting STEM learning? As part of the overall iterative, design-based approach, the team will also field test the story-based tinkering approaches identified in the first cycles of DBR to be most promising. 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. It will result in activities, exhibit components, and training resources that invite visitors' stories into open-ended problem-solving activities. It will advance understanding of mechanisms for encouraging engineering learning and spatial thinking through direct experience interacting with objects, and playful, scaffolded (guided) problem-solving activities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目响应呼吁，增加儿童在早期接触和参与STEM。随着创客运动的兴起，非正规和正规教育部门见证了创客和修修补补空间、项目和课程的急剧扩张。这部分是因为修补经验的潜在好处，以促进工程教育的机会和公平。为了实现这些好处，有必要继续制定和推广设计和促进方法，这些方法可以加深早期参与工程和其他STEM相关技能的学科实践。该项目将研究如何将故事融入幼儿及其家庭的非正式STEM学习体验。故事可以特别有效，因为它们将幼儿及其照顾者带来的知识和经验与修补以及可以扩展知识的对话和实践活动联系起来。此外，该项目的一个独特贡献是通过鼓励儿童思考其新兴结构的空间特性来测试故事也可以促进空间推理的假设。该项目使用基于设计的研究方法来推进知识和实践的证据基础，从而产生基于故事的修补。使用猜想映射，团队将详细说明他们的初步想法，以及设计/实践如何明显影响儿童行为和学习成果。该团队将考虑参与者的人口特征，语言实践和知识资金，以了解正在实施的设计实践（资源，活动）以及它们如何促进学习。每个研究/DBR周期的结果作为下一个问题和假设的输入。芝加哥儿童博物馆的修补实验室的300多名5至8岁的儿童及其父母将参加这项研究，以研究以下关键问题：（1）什么样的设计和促进方法使幼儿及其照顾者参与创造他们自己的工程丰富的修补故事？(2)博物馆展览设计（例如，模型，互动展示）和修补故事一起产生空间思维，以进一步丰富早期STEM学习的机会？（3）孩子和他们的家人讲述的修补故事是否支持持久的STEM学习？作为整个迭代的、基于设计的方法的一部分，该团队还将实地测试在DBR的第一个周期中确定的最有前途的基于故事的修补方法。该项目由推进非正式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。它将导致活动，展览组件和培训资源，邀请游客的故事到开放式的解决问题的活动。它将通过与物体的直接互动体验和有趣的、支架式（引导式）解决问题的活动，促进对鼓励工程学习和空间思维机制的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。