Engaging Native American Students in STEM Career Development Through a Culturally-Responsive After-School Program Using Virtual Environments and 3-D Printing

该项目将开发和研究一个课外项目，旨在提高美国原住民中学生的STEM职业兴趣和动机。学生们将使用包括虚拟现实(VR)、增强现实(AR)和3D打印在内的数字技术，解决通过该项目的文化响应、基于问题的学习教育模块呈现的空间设计问题。通过一个涉及课后教育工作者、社区成员和学生的生成性共同设计过程，该项目将把历史和当代文化知识融入到与美洲原住民学生相关的学习环境的开发中。该项目的目标受众是来自俄克拉荷马州三个部落民族的中学生和课后教育工作者。该项目将推进波尼族、波塔瓦托米公民和奇卡索三个部落国家的课后STEM项目的基础设施和能力。超过250名美国原住民学生将参加课外项目，这些项目由通过暑期专业发展计划准备的教育工作者提供帮助。该项目将创建技术中心和包容性课程，以支持社区定义的黑客松，在这些活动中，家庭和部落公民可以接触到新的工作场所技术(VR、AR、3D打印)，以优先考虑每个部落民族的实践、知识、技能和价值观。项目研究将集中在课外计划对美洲原住民青年的影响以及与他们的STEM职业发展相关的变量。该项目研究计划借鉴了当代土著学者关于个人和科学身份发展对美洲原住民职业态度的作用的研究。本研究将采用混合研究方法。来自观察、焦点小组、叙述性计划报告和职业生涯评估方法的定性数据将探索该计划对青年STEM认同感和参与度的影响。课后量化测量将评估学生的兴趣、动机、空间学习和STEM认同感。该项目将把它的研究成果、课后课程资源和一个数字文物储存库放在网上，供其他部落国家和课外项目使用。从这项研究中获得的知识和见解将为项目资源的有用性提供证据，并将增加与社区共同创建的文化响应性项目的知识库。该项目由学生和教师创新技术体验计划(ITEST)资助，该计划支持建立对实践、计划要素、背景和过程的理解的项目，这些项目有助于提高学生对科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)以及信息和通信技术(ICT)职业的知识和兴趣。该奖项反映了NSF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。

The project will develop and research an after-school program that is designed to increase the STEM career interests and motivations of Native American middle-school students. Students will use digital technologies, including virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and 3D printing, to solve spatial design problems presented through the project’s culturally responsive, problem-based learning education modules. Through a generative co-design process involving after-school educators, community members, and students, the project will incorporate historical and contemporary cultural knowledge in the development of learning environments that are relevant to Native American students. The target audiences for this project are middle-school students and after-school educators from three Tribal Nations in Oklahoma. The project will advance the infrastructure and capacity for after-school STEM programs in three Tribal Nations, the Pawnee, Citizen Potawatomi, and the Chickasaw Nations. Over 250 Native American students will be served in after-school programs that are facilitated by educators prepared through summer professional development programs. The project will create technology centers and an inclusive curriculum to support the community-defined hackathons where family and Tribal citizens are exposed to new workplace technologies (VR, AR, 3D printing) in a way that prioritizes the practices, knowledge, skills, and values of each Tribal Nation. Project research will focus on the impacts of the after-school programs on Native American youth and variables relevant their STEM career development. The project research plan draws on contemporary indigenous scholarship about the role of personal and science identity development on the career attitudes of Native American. Mixed methods will be employed in this research. Qualitative data from observations, focus groups, narrative program reports, and career life assessment approaches will explore the program impacts on youth STEM identity and engagement. Pre-post quantitative measures will assess student interest, motivation, spatial learning, and STEM identity. The project will make its research findings, after-school curricular resources, and a digital artifact repository available online for other Tribal Nations and after-school programs. The knowledge and insights gained from this research will provide evidence for the usefulness of project resources and will add to the knowledge base on developing culturally responsive programs that are co-created with the community. This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers.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.