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

该奖项由教育和人力资源局学习研究部的AISL计划颁发，使用冠状病毒援助，救济和经济安全（CARES）法案的资金。COVID-19对儿童和家庭的健康构成全国性威胁，对儿童的身心健康造成严重影响。该项目解决了COVID-19对家庭影响的两个关键方面：（a）基于全国范围内学校关闭的大规模转向在家学习以及（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，项目团队将为有K-6年级儿童的家庭开发一系列STEM活动，这些活动利用大多数家庭中现成的物品。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，同时也培养其他STEM技能，特别是与工程设计相关的技能。重要的是，项目团队还考虑了在COVID-19大流行中断期间儿童和家庭的情感健康。由来自印第安纳州大学和宾厄姆顿大学的研究人员以及《科学星期五》杂志的教育资源开发专家领导（一个非营利组织，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者的教育资源，增加公众对科学和科学信息的获取）该项目得到了与纽约科学馆、亚马逊（AR）、缅因州湾研究所（ME）、创新科技博物馆（CA）、印第安纳州博物馆和科珀尼克天文台科学中心（NY）。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，分享一些相关的STEM职业，并让观众参与关于活动及其当前经历的对话。录制的会议版本将经过编辑，包括隐藏式字幕和多种语言的字幕，然后发布在YouTube等平台上。该项目采用基于设计的研究方法，调查使家庭在危机期间在家中和远离传统机构时积极参与STEM的策略。 研究内容集中在：1）参与：家庭如何参与活动任务，在过程中，实践和资源的使用？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）？哪些障碍阻碍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的功效和B）在延长学校关闭期间的连通性/孤立性？（3）活动：哪些活动最受欢迎？有多少活动创意是由团队之外的人提交的？这些活动的年龄/内容重点是什么？研究人员将分析社交媒体数据（包括资源下载和使用跟踪链接，YouTube和Facebook视图，直播期间的评论线程以及社交媒体网站上的Likes/Shares/Follows的数据），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的效能以及他们的连通性或孤立感。研究人员还将要求参与者提交描述他们正在制作的东西以及他们沿着制作过程的图像、视频和文字。对这些数据的分析将有助于深入了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COVID-19相关信息和其他信息作为其设计工作的一部分;以及随着家庭参与设计和制作，想法如何形成，塑造和完善。虽然该项目侧重于收集家庭STEM参与数据的独特机会，因为家庭应对COVID-19大流行造成的破坏，但该项目及其研究结果将提供一个知识库，可用于为未来应对国家紧急情况提供信息，其他旨在促进家庭在家学习的工作，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。

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.