iPAGE 2.0: Understanding and Supporting Transformative Change Toward Equity in the ISE Sector

非正式科学教育（ISE）部门在解决当前的社会问题方面可以发挥重要作用，包括环境条件的变化、系统性贫困以及对自然和人为灾害的社会反应。这些复杂的社会问题需要社会各界参与围绕科学、工程、技术和数学（STEM）以及包容、多样性、公平和准入（IDEA）的深入讨论。要做到这一点，ISE专业人员需要接受培训，了解如何引入不同的观点，支持包容性学习，并提供平等的机构决策、实践和系统机会。来自非正式科学机构和当地社区的不同背景的人带来了新的观点，确定了新的需求，并促进了创新。拓宽视野对于解决21世纪复杂的社会问题至关重要。非正式科学机构所需变革的一个关键部分是在ISE部门内准备变革推动者，能够重新设想公正和公平的非正式科学机构可能是什么样子。iPAGE 2.0是美国国家科学基金会推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）创新发展项目，由明尼苏达科学博物馆和加里贝集团与来自美国各地的27个ISIs合作开展。该项目的首要目标是支持ISE领域向IDEA的转型变革。该项目以知识扩散的扩展服务模式为基础，旨在通过创建中介机构，将研究成果转化为可供ISIs从业人员使用的实际创新，弥合从知识到行动的差距。该项目将ISIs内部具有战略地位的个人团队聚集在一起，并为他们与同事一起制定基于研究的实践和实际的组织变革做好准备，以实现更大的公平性和多样性。该项目由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。这包括提供多种途径，扩大STEM学习经验的获取和参与，推进非正式环境中STEM学习的创新研究和评估，以及发展参与者对深度学习的理解。ISE专业发展计划将与来自4-6个ISIs的领导团队组成的年度一年级团队合作。每个新队列将在一个为期5天的研究所中度过11天，并在虚拟或明尼苏达科学博物馆举行3次为期2天的座谈会。个人和团队将适应、实施和完善来自iPAGE 2.0框架的想法、策略和工具，以便在他们特定的ISI环境和更广泛的专业网络中使用，并参与与iPAGE 2.0社区的持续沟通和咨询。团队中的所有个人都将发展技能，如沟通和协作专业知识，作为变革推动者，在STEM的包容性、多样性、公平性和可及性（IDEA）方面改变他们的组织。以前的参与者将继续扮演变革推动者的角色，并通过在iPAGE 2.0研讨会上分享他们所学到的知识来加强iPAGE 2.0社区的学习。iPAGE 2.0框架侧重于培养参与者对以下方面的理解：1)结构性不平等如何在ISIs和ISE部门内再现社会优势和劣势；2)在从业者、组织、评估人员和研究人员的网络中，促进或抑制行业继续向IDEA转变的障碍、支持和传播媒介；3)如何在网络中准备和支持多样性变革推动者。该项目将采用一种创造性的评估方法，结合发展性、原则性、艺术性和变革性评估，以及基于文化响应方法的交互式、混合方法研究，以解决有关个人、组织和部门变革的核心问题。该项目的主要受众是ISE专业人员，其次受众是在ISE部门工作的研究人员和评估人员。该项目将直接与来自27个ISIs的约122人合作。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The informal science education (ISE) sector has an important role to play in addressing current societal issues, including changes in environmental conditions, systemic poverty, and societal responses to natural and manmade disasters. These complex social problems require engaging all sectors of society in deep discussions around science, engineering, technology, and mathematics (STEM) and inclusion, diversity, equity, and access (IDEA). To do this, ISE professionals need training in how to bring in diverse perspectives, support inclusive learning, and provide equal access to institutional policymaking, practices and systems. People from different backgrounds within informal science institutions (ISIs) and local communities bring new perspectives, identify new needs, and foster innovation. This broadening of perspectives is critical to address the complex social problems of the 21st century. A key part of the needed transformations in informal science institutions is the preparation of change agents within the ISE sector capable of reimagining what just and equitable informal science institutions might look like. iPAGE 2.0 is an NSF Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) Innovations in Development project conducted by the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Garibay Group in concert with 27 ISIs from across the US. The overarching goal of the project is to support transformative change toward IDEA in the ISE sector. The project is based on an extension service model of knowledge diffusion which seeks to bridge the knowledge-to-action gap by creating intermediaries that can translate research into practical innovations that can be used by practitioners in ISIs. The project brings together teams of strategically placed individuals within ISIs and prepares them to work with their colleagues to enact research-based practices and practical organizational changes toward greater equity and diversity. This project is funded by the 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.This ISE professional development initiative will work with annual first-year cohorts consisting of leadership teams from 4-6 ISIs. Each new cohort will spend 11 days together in a 5-day institute and three 2-day colloquia either virtually or at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Individuals and teams will adapt, implement, and refine ideas, strategies, and tools from the iPAGE 2.0 framework for use within their specific ISI context and broader professional networks and engage in ongoing communication and consultation with the iPAGE 2.0 community. All individuals on the team will develop skills, such as communication and collaboration expertise, to function as change agents acting to transform their organizations with respect to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access (IDEA) in STEM. Participants from previous cohorts will continue their roles as change agents and enhance learning in the iPAGE 2.0 community by sharing what they have learned at iPAGE 2.0 colloquia. The iPAGE 2.0 framework focuses on developing participants’ understanding of 1) how structural inequalities function to reproduce social advantage and disadvantage within ISIs and the ISE sector; 2) the barriers, supports, and transmission vectors that contribute to or inhibit a continued shift in the sector toward IDEA within a network of practitioners, organizations, evaluators and researchers; and 3) how to prepare and support diversity change agents within the network. The project will employ a creative evaluation approach that combines developmental, principles-focused, arts-based, and transformative evaluation and an interactive, mixed-methods research study grounded in culturally responsive methodologies to address central questions concerning individual, organizational, and sector change. The project’s primary audience is ISE professionals, and the secondary audience is researchers and evaluators working within the ISE sector. The project will work directly with an estimated 122 individuals from 27 ISIs.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.