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

非正规科学教育（伊势）部门在解决当前的社会问题方面发挥着重要作用，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围绕科学、工程、技术和数学（STEM）以及包容、多样性、公平和获取（IDEA）进行深入讨论。要做到这一点，伊势专业人员需要培训如何带来不同的观点，支持包容性学习，并提供平等的机会，机构决策，实践和系统。来自非正式科学机构（ISI）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。这种视野的拓宽对于解决21世纪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伊势部门内准备变革推动者，他们能够重新想象公正和公平的非正式科学机构可能是什么样子。iPAGE 2.0是NSF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Garibay集团与来自美国各地的27个ISI合作进行。该项目的总体目标是支持伊势行业向IDEA的转型变革。该项目以知识传播的推广服务模式为基础，力求通过建立中介机构，将研究成果转化为可供信息系统从业人员使用的实际创新，弥合知识与行动之间的差距。该项目汇集了ISI内的战略性个人团队，并准备他们与同事合作，制定基于研究的实践和实际的组织变革，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，以扩大获得和参与STEM学习经验，推进创新研究和评估非正式环境中的STEM学习，并发展参与者对深入学习的理解。这个伊势专业发展计划将与每年的第一年队列合作，由4-6个ISI的领导团队组成。每个新的队列将在为期5天的研究所和三个为期2天的座谈会上一起度过11天，无论是虚拟的还是在明尼苏达州科学博物馆。个人和团队将适应，实施和完善的想法，战略和工具，从iPAGE 2.0框架内使用其特定的ISI环境和更广泛的专业网络，并参与持续的沟通和咨询与iPAGE 2.0社区。团队中的所有人都将发展沟通和协作专业知识等技能，以作为变革推动者，在STEM的包容性，多样性，公平性和访问（IDEA）方面改变他们的组织。来自前一批的参与者将继续他们作为变革推动者的角色，并通过分享他们在iPAGE 2.0座谈会上学到的东西来加强iPAGE 2.0社区的学习。iPAGE 2.0框架的重点是发展参与者对以下问题的理解：1）结构性不平等如何发挥作用，在ISIs和伊势部门内重现社会优势和劣势; 2）在从业人员，组织，评估人员和研究人员的网络内，有助于或抑制该部门继续向IDEA转变的障碍，支持和传播媒介;以及3）如何准备和支持网络内的多样性变革代理。该项目将采用一种创造性的评估方法，结合发展，以原则为中心，以艺术为基础，变革性的评估和互动，混合方法的研究，以文化响应的方法为基础，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伊势专业人员，次要受众是伊势部门内的研究人员和评估人员。该项目将直接与来自27个ISI的约122名个人合作。该奖项反映了NSF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.