RAPID: Rapidly building a collaborative network of informal educators to address extended school closures related to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic

这一快速奖励是由教育和人力资源局学习研究部的AISL计划利用冠状病毒援助、救济和经济安全法案(CARE)的资金做出的。新冠肺炎对全国儿童和家庭的健康构成威胁，对儿童的身心健康造成严重影响。该项目涉及新冠肺炎对家庭影响的两个关键方面：(A)基于全国范围内的学校关闭而向在家学习的大规模转变，以及(B)家庭迫切需要了解病毒传播和预防的基础科学。为了满足这些需求，项目组将为有K-6年级儿童的家庭开发一系列STEM活动，利用大多数家庭随时可以获得的物品。这些活动帮助儿童及其家人了解病毒、病毒传播和病毒预防，同时还发展其他STEM技能，特别是与工程设计相关的技能。重要的是，项目团队还考虑了新冠肺炎疫情破坏期间儿童和家庭的情感福祉。该项目由印第安纳大学和宾厄姆顿大学的研究人员以及科学星期五(一个致力于通过播客、数字视频、原创网络文章以及教师和非正式教育工作者的教育资源增加公众获取科学和科学信息的非营利性组织)的教育资源开发专家领导，并得到了与纽约科学馆、Amazeum(AR)、缅因湾研究所(ME)、创新技术博物馆(CA)、印第安纳州立博物馆和Kopnik观察站科学中心(NY)的合作伙伴关系的进一步支持。这些活动将通过现场直播的网络会议与家庭分享，介绍活动，为成年人提供便利的提示，分享一些与STEM相关的职业，并让观众参与关于活动和他们当前经历的对话。录制的会议版本将经过编辑，并包括多种语言的隐藏字幕和字幕，然后发布在YouTube等平台上。该项目采用以设计为基础的研究方法，研究使家庭能够在危机期间在家和远离传统机构的情况下积极参与STEM的战略。研究内容主要集中在：1)参与度：家庭如何在过程、实践和资源使用方面参与活动任务？谁参加了，他们为什么选择参加，他们是如何参与的(包括活动的修改)？什么障碍阻碍了感兴趣的家庭完成活动？2)影响：这些活动如何改变参与者的感受：a)围绕STEM的有效性和b)在延长学校停课期间的联系/孤立？3)活动：哪些活动吸收最多？团队以外的人提交了多少活动创意？每项活动的年龄/内容重点是什么？研究人员将分析社交媒体数据(包括资源下载和跟踪链接的使用、YouTube和Facebook浏览量、直播期间的评论线程以及社交媒体网站上的赞/分享/关注)，以改进和改进活动和编程，并了解家庭参与活动的方式。研究人员将征求网站访问者的调查回复，以收集更多关于参与者的信息，他们为什么参与，他们如何参与，以及活动如何影响参与者对STEM的有效性以及他们的连接感或孤立感。研究人员还将要求参与者提交图像、视频和文字，描述他们正在制作的作品以及他们在制作过程中的过程。对这些数据的分析将导致以下方面的深入见解：儿童和家庭如何使用STEM语言和实践；儿童和家庭如何提出问题并将新冠肺炎相关信息和其他信息作为其设计工作的一部分；以及在家庭参与设计和制作的过程中，想法是如何形成、塑造和完善的。虽然该项目专注于一个独特的机会来收集家庭在应对新冠肺炎疫情中断时的STEM参与度数据，但该项目及其发现将提供一个知识库，可用于为未来对国家紧急情况的反应、旨在促进家庭在家中学习的其他工作以及支持儿童解决开放式问题的方法提供信息。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智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This RAPID award is made by the AISL program in the Division of Research on Learning in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources, using funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. COVID-19 presents a national threat to the health of children and families, presenting serious implications for the mental and physical health of children. This project addresses two critical aspects of the impact on COVID-19 on families: (a) the large-scale shift to at-home learning based on nationwide school closures and (b) the critical need for families to understand the basic science of virus transmission and prevention. To address these needs, the project team will develop a series of STEM activities for families with children in grades K-6 that make use of items readily available in most households. The activities help children and their families learn about viruses, virus transmission, and virus prevention while also developing other STEM-skills, particularly related to engineering design. Importantly, the project team also considers the emotional well-being of children and families during the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. Led by researchers from Indiana University and Binghamton University, and experts in educational resource development from Science Friday (a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the public’s access to science and scientific information through podcasts, digital videos, original web articles, and educational resources for teachers and informal educators) the project is further supported by partnerships with the New York Hall of Science, Amazeum (AR), the Gulf of Maine Research Institute (ME), The Tech Museum of Innovation (CA), the Indiana State Museum, and Kopernik Observatory Science Center (NY). The activities will be shared with families through live-streamed web sessions that introduce the activity, give tips to adults for facilitation, share a bit on related STEM careers and engage the audience in dialog about the activity and their current experiences. Versions of the sessions that are recorded will be edited and include closed-captioning and subtitles in multiple languages before being posted on platforms such as YouTube. This project uses a design-based research approach to investigate strategies for enabling families to actively engage with STEM while home and away from their traditional institutions during a period of crisis. The research components focus on: 1) Engagement: How do families engage in the activity tasks, in terms of processes, practices, and use of resources? Who participated, why did they choose to participate and how did they engage (including modification of activities)? What barriers prevented interested families from completing activities? 2) Impact: How did the activities change participants’ feelings of: a) efficacy around STEM and b) connectedness/ isolation, during extended school closures? and 3) the Activities: Which activities had the greatest uptake? How many activity ideas were submitted by those outside of the team? What was the age/content focus of each of these activities? The researchers will analyze social media data (including data on resource downloads and use of tracked links, YouTube and Facebook views, comment threads during livestreams and Likes/Shares/Follows across social media sites) to refine and improve the activities and programming as well as learn about the ways families are engaging in the activities. The researchers will solicit survey responses from website visitors to gather more information on participants, why they participated, how they engaged and how the activities impacted participants’ efficacy around STEM and their feelings of connectedness or isolation. The researchers will also ask participants to submit images, videos and text that describes what they are making and their process along the way. Analysis of this data would lead to insights on how children and families use STEM language and practices; how children and families ask questions and use COVID-19-related and other information as part of their design work; and how ideas are formed, shaped and refined as families engage in design and making. While the project focuses on a unique opportunity to collect data on family STEM engagement as families respond to disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, this project and its findings will provide a knowledge base that can be utilized to inform future responses to national emergencies, other work aimed at promoting family learning at home, and approaches to supporting children in open-ended problem solving.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.