CAREER: Engineering in Youth-led Technology-rich Settings: Promoting Belonging and Preventing Harm

我们生活在一个越来越多地使用技术来完成基本日常任务的世界里，使用技术的STEM和非STEM工作的数量正在稳步增加。然而，只有那些能够获得昂贵资源的学生，或者由于许多因素（包括流行媒体中的图像）而认为自己擅长技术的学生，才有机会在工程和技术方面发展舒适和流畅。这种动态对历史上在STEM领域被少数化的个人产生了不利影响。青年人往往不接触工程和技术，因为他们觉得自己不“属于”工程。在这个项目中，初中和高中青年将领导空间的设计，在那里不同类型的技术（例如，3d打印机，激光和乙烯基切割机，微控制器板，传感器和其他电子产品，缝纫机和手工工具）将被青年使用，以解决与他们相关的工程问题，在一个低风险的环境。这些空间的设计有两个目标：1）支持青年人发展对空间和工程的归属感; 2）将防止对社区和环境的损害视为解决工程问题的核心。青年还将与研究团队合作，制定方法，将防止对人和环境造成伤害的想法作为工程的基本原则，并制定最佳做法，以创建类似的青年主导的技术丰富的空间。该项目还将召集管理这些空间的协调员和这些空间的领导者或可能成为领导者的学生，向他们学习并支持他们学习新想法。利用技术创造符合学生兴趣和动机的工件，在促进包容性和吸引学生进入工程领域方面有很大的希望。然而，在这些包容性努力中，妇女、社会经济背景较低的学生以及来自得不到充分服务的种族和族裔群体的学生仍然代表性不足，得不到充分服务。在工程和STEM背景下缺乏归属感起着明显的作用，教师，商店工作人员和协调员的无意守门行为也是如此。该项目通过开展青年参与性工作来解决这些障碍，以满足工程教育中技术丰富空间的未兑现承诺。该项目有两个主要目标：目标1：支持青年领导探索技术使用和创造如何支持工程归属感。目标2：与青年一起沿着制定一个框架，以防止在工程中对人和环境造成伤害为中心。对于该项目的研究部分，该团队将开发1）最佳实践，以促进在技术丰富的环境中的归属感和评估工具，2）一个框架，以防止工程设计实践中的伤害，以及3）青年领导技术丰富的工程空间的开发和维护的最佳实践。该提案的教育计划将侧重于将研究成果与第一年工程课程中的工程设计课程以及非正式工程教育工作者和青年领袖的培训和发展计划相结合。这项工作将大大有助于PI的长期职业愿景，以支持历史上服务不足的学生使用工程和技术，在日益工程化的世界中过上有目的和联系的生活。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。

We live in a world where we increasingly use technology to do essential daily tasks, and the number of STEM and non-STEM jobs that use technology is steadily increasing. Yet, only students who have access to expensive resources or see themselves as people who are good with technology due to many factors, including images in popular media, have opportunities to develop comfort and fluency in engineering and technology. This dynamic adversely impacts individuals who have been historically minoritized in STEM fields. Often, youth do not engage with engineering and technology because they feel like they do not "belong" in engineering. In this project, middle and high school youth will lead the design of spaces where different types of technologies (for example, 3d printers, laser and vinyl cutters, microcontroller boards, sensors and other electronics, sewing machines, and hand tools) will be used, by youth, to solve engineering problems relevant to them in a low-stakes environment. The spaces will be designed with two aims: 1) to support youth in developing a sense of belonging to the space and in engineering; and 2) to consider preventing harm to communities and the environment as central to their engineering problem-solving. The youth will also work with the research team to develop ways to introduce the idea of preventing harm to people and the environment as an essential tenet of engineering and develop best practices to create similar youth-led technology-rich spaces. The project will also bring together groups of coordinators who run such spaces and students who are or might become leaders in such spaces, to learn from them and support them in learning new ideas.Using technology to create artifacts aligned with students’ interests and motivations has great promise in promoting inclusion and attracting students to engineering. However, women, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and students from underserved racial and ethnic groups remain underrepresented and underserved in these inclusion efforts. A lack of sense of belonging in engineering and STEM contexts plays a clear role, as do the inadvertent gatekeeping behaviors of teachers, shop staff, and coordinators. This project addresses these barriers by conducting youth participatory work to meet the unmet promises of technology-rich spaces in engineering education. The project has two primary goals: Goal 1: To support youth in leading explorations of how technology use and creation can support a sense of belonging in engineering. Goal 2: To develop a framework along with youth that centers preventing harm to people and the environment when engineering. For the research component of this project, the team will develop 1) best practices to promote belonging in technology-rich settings and an instrument to assess it, 2) a framework to center preventing harm in engineering design practices, and 3) best practices for youth to lead the development and maintenance of technology-rich engineering spaces. The educational plan of the proposal will focus on integrating research findings with an engineering design curriculum in a first-year engineering course and training and development programs for informal engineering educators and youth leaders. This work will significantly contribute to the PI’s long-term career vision to support historically underserved students in using engineering and technology to live lives of purpose and connection in an increasingly engineered world.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.