Collaborative Research: Creating a Mechanism for Youth to Document Out-Of-School-Time STEM Learning as a Means for Expanding Educational Pathways

该奖项的部分资金来自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)。该项目将制定学生控制系统的规范，以代表青少年在校外时间(OST)环境中的学习，以改善获得未来科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)学习机会的机会。对于想要接受STEM教育和从事STEM职业的学习者来说，他们必须能够通过“把关”机制，根据先前的课程作业和成绩、教师推荐和语言水平评估等因素对学生进行筛选和分类。尽管大量证据表明，这种措施未能涵盖STEM学习的所有重要方面，但在中学和中学后的STEM教育中，它们传统上被用作为未来STEM学习做准备的指标。这些系统的进程将某些小众化群体，包括黑人、土著和其他有色人种、低收入、移民和难民青年以及学习英语的青年排除在高质量的中学和中学后STEM学习经验之外，因为现有措施没有证实他们先前的知识和经验。然而，少数族裔青年往往参与OST STEM的学习机会，在那里他们对未来学习机会的准备得到培养和重视。一个挑战是以可用的格式可靠地记录这种准备情况，以便青年能够获得新的STEM学习机会，特别是在高等教育背景下。该项目战略性地建立在早期工作的基础上，重点是通过数字微型证书或徽章等工具实现STEM学习的民主化，以及数字档案袋。这些早期的努力缺少将这些平台与连接青年学习者与OST STEM学习组织和未来STEM学习机会的基础设施相结合。这一发展创新项目将来自高等教育机构的小规模青年及其家人、OST提供者和招生官员聚集在一起，探索OST“成绩单”所需的设计特征，以及描述软件系统如何支持他们的创建和共享的用户故事。基于掌握学习的概念，即通过行动演示学习，学习者将控制成绩单中包含的内容，以便他们创建自己关于学习经历的叙述。认识到文档不是大多数STEM OST组织的主要重点，该项目将为确定和编纂学习者及其家庭认为在不同STEM活动中相关和重要的学习目标或结果提供直接支持。该项目由推进非正式STEM学习(AISL)计划资助，该计划旨在促进对非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。该项目将采用基于设计的实施研究(DBIR)方法，并通过召集来自三个主要利益相关群体(青年及其家庭、OST提供者和招生人员)的代表来参与一系列发现和设计活动。项目合作伙伴，包括掌握成绩单联盟(MA)、STEAMville(IL)、STUDIO(WA)和Wolverine Path(MI)，将与PIS合作设计模板，学习者可以使用这些模板来描述从每个提供商那里进行的STEM学习，并与不同的STEM学习重点(例如，计算机科学、计算思维、交叉概念、科学和工程实践以及数学)保持一致。从这些会议收集的数据将被用来解决以下研究问题：(1)来自微型社区的青年和家庭如何理解并选择参与STEM OST学习机会？(2)青年如何理解STEM OST学习机会并与之互动？(3)OST提供者如何在他们提供的活动中描述STEM学习目标？以及(4)大学招生人员如何将非正式STEM学习作为整体招生过程的一部分？这项工作有可能进一步理解如何将OST学习作为STEM学习轨迹更大生态系统的一部分进行记录和共享。通过深入参与少数族裔青年和家庭的观点和声音，该项目寻求开发一种有效和值得信赖的工具，承认和服务于他们的STEM学习，从而扩大少数族裔青年对STEM教育和职业的参与。这项工作也将使OST提供者受益，将青年STEM学习的文档转化为有助于以促进其使命的方式传达其计划有效性的形式，包括向未来的参与者和资助者传达有效性的证据。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 award is funded in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). This project will create the specification for a learner-controlled system to represent youth learning in Out-of-School-Time (OST) settings, to improve access to future Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) learning opportunities. For learners to pursue a STEM education, and STEM careers, they must be able to move through "gatekeeping" mechanisms that filter and sort students based on factors such as prior coursework and grades, teacher recommendations, and language proficiency assessments. Even though abundant evidence shows that such measures fail to capture all important aspects of STEM learning, they are traditionally relied upon in secondary and post-secondary STEM education contexts as indicators of preparation for future STEM learning. These systemic processes exclude certain minoritized groups, including Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC), low income, immigrant and refugee youth, and youth learning English, from high-quality secondary and post-secondary STEM learning experiences because existing measures do not validate their prior knowledge and experiences. Yet, minoritized youth often engage in OST STEM learning opportunities, where their readiness for future learning opportunities is nurtured and valued. One challenge is to reliably document this readiness in a usable format so youth can access new STEM learning opportunities, especially in post-secondary contexts. This project builds strategically upon earlier work focusing on the democratization of STEM learning through vehicles such as digital micro-credentials or badges, and upon digital portfolios. Missing from these earlier efforts was integration of these platforms with an infrastructure that connected youth learners to OST STEM learning organizations and to future STEM learning opportunities. This Innovations in Development project brings together minoritized youth and their families, OST providers, and admissions officials from higher education institutions to explore the needed design features for OST "transcripts," and user stories that describe how software systems can support their creation and sharing. Grounded in the concept of mastery-based learning, where learning is demonstrated via action, learners will control what is included in the transcript so that they create their own narratives about their learning experiences. Recognizing that documentation is not the key focus of most STEM OST organizations, this project will provide direct support for identifying and codifying learning goals or outcomes that learners and their families find relevant and important within different STEM activities. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments.The project will take a Design-Based Implementation Research (DBIR) approach and proceed by convening representatives from three main stakeholder groups (youth and their families, OST providers, and admissions staff) to engage in a series of discovery and design activities. Project partners, including the Mastery Transcript Consortium (MA), STEAMville (IL), STUDIO (WA), and Wolverine Pathways (MI), will work together with the PIs to design templates learners can use to characterize STEM learning from each provider, aligned with different STEM learning foci (e.g., computer science, computational thinking, cross-cutting concepts, science and engineering practices, and mathematics). Data collected from these sessions will be used to address the following research questions: (1) How and why do youth and families from minoritized communities understand and choose to participate in STEM OST learning opportunities?, (2) How do youth understand and interact with STEM OST learning opportunities?, (3) How do OST providers characterize the STEM learning goals in the activities they provide?, and (4) How do college admissions personnel view the role of informal STEM learning as part of a holistic admissions process? This work has the potential to further the understanding of how OST learning can be documented and shared as a part of the larger ecosystem of STEM learning trajectories. By deeply engaging the perspectives and voices of minoritized youth and families, this project seeks to develop a valid and trustworthy instrument that recognizes and serves their STEM learning, thus broadening the participation of minoritized youth in STEM education and careers. This work will also benefit OST providers, by translating the documentation of youth STEM learning into forms that may help communicate the efficacy of their programs in ways that further their missions, including communicating evidence of effectiveness to both future participants and funders.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.