SCC-PG: Exploring STEM Educational Delivery for Youth in Norfolk Juvenile Detention Center

被拘留青年是一个在教育机会方面存在差异的群体，特别是他们在STEM学习方面的机会更少。被拘留青年获得教育资源和STEM学习的机会至关重要，这有助于他们掌握符合市场需求的就业技能，并有可能为未来的STEM劳动力做出贡献。从2019冠状病毒病大流行带来的条件和挑战中吸取教训，该项目寻求开发和提供青年个人学习环境，这是一个教育生态系统，可供广泛的被拘留青年学习者使用，并根据青年与系统的互动提供个性化定制。为了开发该系统，该项目从一个多学科少年司法社区合作工作组获得了投入，该工作组审查了现有的教育基础设施，确定了挑战和可行性，并为个性化学习系统的设计和交付提供了投入。这项研究的结果将是一个框架，利用智能和互联技术促进被拘留青年的STEM学习。该项目发生在诺福克少年拘留中心（NJDC）的背景下。这项工作追求一系列研究问题，旨在确定影响STEM学习和教育服务可及性的障碍和因素，大流行条件如何改变这些挑战，并预测提供个性化学习STEM教育生态系统的预测挑战。利益相关者，包括中心的学术人员、管理层、公立学校系统和与少年司法相关的人员，组成了一个焦点小组，就当前的教育生态系统和设计特征进行对话，这些特征将支持更强的个性化系统的STEM学习。参与者的回答将被提炼成设计原则，使用扎根理论来指导个性化学习系统的设计和开发。研究的主要成果将是一个案例研究，描述个性化学习系统的框架和它所依赖的设计原则。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。

Detained youth are a population that experience disparities in educational opportunities and in particular, have systemically fewer rich opportunities for STEM learning. Access to educational resources and STEM learning for detained youth are critical to position them to have marketable employment skills and potentially contribute to the STEM workforce of the future. Taking lessons from the conditions and challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this project seeks to develop and deliver a Personal Learning Environment for Youth, an educational ecosystem that is accessible to a wide range of detained youth learners and provides individual tailoring based on youth interactions with the system. To develop the system, the project takes input from a multidisciplinary juvenile justice community collaborative working group that examines the existing educational infrastructure, determines challenges and affordances, and provides input into the design and delivery of the personalized learning system. The outcome of this research will be a framework for facilitating STEM learning for detained youth using smart and connected technologies.The project takes place in the context of the Norfolk Juvenile Detention Center (NJDC). The work pursues a set of research questions that seek to identify the barriers and factors impacting accessibility to STEM learning and educational services, how the pandemic conditions changed those challenges, and anticipates the predicted challenges to delivering a personalized learning STEM education ecosystem. Stakeholders, including the center's academic staff, management, the public school system, and personnel related to juvenile justice, form a focus group engaged in conversation about the current educational ecosystem and the design features that would support stronger STEM learning for a personalized system. Participant responses will be distilled into design principles using grounded theory that will guide the design and development of the personalized learning system. The primary outcome of the research will be a case study that describes the framework for the personalized learning system and the design principles on which it rests.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.