CAREER: Eradicate the Gate: Empowering Learners and Equalizing Assessment in K12 Engineering Education

职业：消除大门：K12 工程教育中的学习者赋权和均衡评估

• 批准号: 2339619
• 负责人: Tamecia Jones
• 金额: $ 65万
• 依托单位: North Carolina State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-06-01 至 2029-05-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2339619&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Eradicate; Gate; Empowering; Learners

Many youth have potential to be successful engineers, but there is an assessment gap. First, industry and university feedback reveal that K12 assessments do not measure all the things engineers do beyond math and science ability. Second, although the public, educators, and researchers perceive there is an achievement gap, current STEM assessments often have racial biases, creating a gatekeeping effect. These two realities combined keep many minoritized youth from becoming engineers. This CAREER project addresses the assessment gap by partnering with teenagers to create innovative, equitable assessments and technology that supports peer assessment. The study will provide information about how middle and high school students understand and identify engineering, show educators and researchers gaps between their interpretations and student interpretations of engineering, and help educators and researchers understand how to create a healthy culture of peer assessment. Overall, this CAREER project will provide tools for assessment in K12 engineering education that have the potential to create opportunities rather than restrict opportunities for minoritized youth to have future careers in engineering. This five-year CAREER project will use a mixed methods, iterative distributed participatory design approach to investigate the following research questions: How do K12 learners co-create an equitable engineering epistemic frame that aligns with engineering professional activities? How does using peer assessment software affect learners’ engineering education experiences in informal robotics clubs in Black churches? The project intentionally engages the most marginalized students first in assessment development, responding to traditional bias in STEM assessment and learning from students how they assess. This project also increases minoritized groups’ participation in STEM and public engagement with science and technology through hosting FIRST robotics clubs in Black churches. The project employs and integrates innovative approaches to achieve its outcomes. Using epistemic frames as a foundation and the noticing framework (with students as lead) over three phases (Phase I-III), teenagers and minoritized communities act as user, tester, informant, and design partner to co-create: 1) an engineering epistemic frame and 2) a web-based, mobile-enabled peer assessment software. These outcomes will be achieved through Design Workshops, prototyping, and user studies during Phases I and II (Year 1 & 2, n=15). After the epistemic frame and software are developed, two robotics teams will pilot both to peer assess each other during two robotics seasons, offering feedback for refinement during Phase III (Year 3 & 4, n=30). Data analysis informs each iteration of epistemic frame and software during Phases I-III. Content analysis will be applied to data sources which include in situ videos, digital artifacts, interviews, and focus groups. In Phase IV (Year 5), researchers will analyze the peer assessment data using Epistemic Network Analysis. The integrated education plan involves training of rookie robotics coaches, developing STEM students into engineering education researchers, generating artifacts for professional development of teachers. Results will be disseminated through a Lessons Learned series which includes deployment of software, workshops for educators and researchers, a video archive for professional development, and a playbook for partnering with nontraditional sites.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.

许多年轻人有潜力成为成功的工程师，但在评估方面存在差距。首先，行业和大学的反馈显示，K12评估并没有衡量工程师除了数学和科学能力之外所做的所有事情。其次，尽管公众、教育工作者和研究人员认为存在成就差距，但目前的STEM评估往往存在种族偏见，产生了把关效应。这两个现实结合在一起，使许多被边缘化的年轻人无法成为工程师。这个职业项目通过与青少年合作创建创新的、公平的评估和支持同行评估的技术来解决评估差距。这项研究将提供有关初中生如何理解和识别工程学的信息，向教育工作者和研究人员展示他们对工程学的解释与学生对工程学的解释之间的差距，并帮助教育工作者和研究人员了解如何创建健康的同行评估文化。总体而言，这个职业项目将为K12工程教育提供评估工具，有可能为少数族裔青年创造机会，而不是限制他们未来在工程领域的职业生涯。这个为期五年的职业生涯项目将使用混合方法、迭代的分布式参与式设计方法来调查以下研究问题：K12学习者如何共同创建一个与工程专业活动相一致的公平的工程认知框架？在黑人教堂的非正式机器人俱乐部中，使用同行评估软件对学习者的工程教育体验有何影响？该项目有意让最边缘化的学生首先参与评估发展，回应STEM评估中的传统偏见，并向学生学习他们如何评估。该项目还通过在黑人教堂举办第一个机器人俱乐部，增加了小规模团体对STEM的参与和公众对科学技术的参与。该项目采用并整合了创新方法，以实现其成果。以认知框架为基础和注意框架(以学生为主导)在三个阶段(阶段I-III)中，青少年和微型社区充当用户、测试者、信息者和设计伙伴，共同创建：1)工程认知框架和2)基于网络的、支持移动的同行评估软件。这些成果将在第一和第二阶段(第一年和第二年，n=15)通过设计研讨会、原型制作和用户研究来实现。在认知框架和软件开发完成后，两个机器人团队将在两个机器人赛季期间进行试点，相互进行同行评估，在第三阶段(第三年和第四年，n=30)为改进提供反馈。在第一阶段到第三阶段，数据分析为认知框架和软件的每一次迭代提供了信息。内容分析将应用于包括现场视频、数字文物、访谈和焦点小组在内的数据源。在第四阶段(第五年)，研究人员将使用认知网络分析来分析同行评估数据。综合教育计划包括培训新手机器人教练，将STEM学生培养成工程教育研究人员，为教师的专业发展创造文物。结果将通过经验教训系列进行传播，其中包括部署软件、为教育工作者和研究人员举办研讨会、用于专业发展的视频档案以及用于与非传统网站合作的剧本。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。