Creative Robotics: an inclusive program for fostering diverse STEM talent in middle school

这一合作伙伴关系汇集了机器人研究所(卡内基梅隆大学)、两个在教育研究和教师发展方面经验丰富的机构(马歇尔大学和西自由大学)以及西弗吉尼亚州(明戈县学校)和宾夕法尼亚州(阿勒格尼山谷学区)的学区。该项目在发现和培养卓越人才重点领域的关键创新之处在于，将机器人技术融入到非竞争性环境下的中学生课程中，以识别和培养“卓越计算思维”和“卓越工程设计”方面的人才。该项目利用了Art&Amp；Bots项目，该项目使教师能够向艺术、科学、健康或英语等学科的学生介绍基于工艺的机器人项目。这项工作的智力价值是分析了创造性技术在学生工程参与中的作用，并确定了未被认可的创造性STEM人才。这有助于STEM计算思维和工程设计方面的人才理论，并完善了技术流畅性的工作定义。更广泛的影响包括将创造力与技术相结合，为教师提供精致的专业发展材料以支持STEM人才，以及在学区范围内部署课程创新的模式。通过与职前教育合作伙伴执行该项目，建立了一条扩大规模的途径，以便该计划可以在不断扩大的学区范围内传播。研究和评估的重点是学生的参与度、知识和态度，以及教师识别和支持学生才华的能力。

This partnership brings together the Robotics Institute (Carnegie Mellon University), two institutions experienced in educational research and teacher development (Marshall University and West Liberty University) and school districts in West Virginia (Mingo County Schools) and Pennsylvania (Allegheny Valley School District). The key innovation of this project in the focal area of Identifying and Cultivating Exceptional Talent is its incorporation of robotics into courses for middle school students in a non-competitive setting to identify and cultivate talent in "exceptional computational thinking" and "exceptional engineering design." The project utilizes the Arts & Bots program which enables teachers to introduce craft-based robotics projects to students in disciplines as varied as art, science, health, or English. The intellectual merit of this work is the analysis of the role of creative technology in student engineering engagement and the identification of unrecognized creative STEM talent. This contributes to STEM talent theories on computational thinking and engineering design and refines working definitions of technology fluency. The broader impacts include the integration of creativity with technology, refined professional development materials for teachers to support STEM talent, and models for school district-wide deployment of curricular innovation.By executing the project with pre-service educational partners, a pathway to scaling is built so that the program may spread across a widening footprint of school districts. Research and evaluation focus on student engagement, knowledge, and attitudes as well as teachers' abilities to identify and support student talent.