Preparing High Achieving Urban Students for STEM Careers: Engineers of the Future Program

该项目将推进“面向学生和教师的创新技术体验”（ITEST）项目的努力，更好地理解和促进提高学生在科学、技术、工程或数学（STEM）领域追求职业的动机和能力的实践，让成绩优秀的中学生准备好高中的高等数学课程，并最终进入工程职业生涯。该项目由巴尔的摩市公立学校（City Schools）和兰德公司（RAND Corporation）共同发起，其动机是美国明确需要提高追求科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）职业的非裔美国人和拉丁裔人才的代表性。现有数据显示，十多年来，非裔美国人在美国工程学学士学位获得者中的比例一直在下降，2014年降至3.5%。2010年，全美黑人大学新生中只有1.1%的人选择了工程专业。正在进行的项目包括从八年级不提供代数1的学校招收一些优秀的巴尔的摩学生。该项目将提供为期6周的夏季准备课程，以提高他们的数学技能，并让他们接触STEM职业。开学后，学生们将学习虚拟代数1课程。由于数学是STEM的一个关键主题，缺乏数学技能可能会限制一些学生从事STEM职业，因此该项目有助于解决一个重要的需求。学生将参与的活动包括实地考察和每周研讨会。此外，还有一个非常详细的时间表和评估计划来衡量所有关键变量的结果。几名当地学校的员工/教师将直接参与该项目。这是一个优势，因为它表明该项目清楚地得到了学校的支持。这些教师将直接培养/培养未来的工程师。选择参与者的标准将包括以下内容：将从巴尔的摩市公立学校（Baltimore City Public Schools）随机选择180名成绩优异的学生，这是一个低收入的城市学区，非洲裔美国学生的比例很高。行业专业人士的参与将为学生提供榜样，让他们了解如果从事STEM职业，他们可以获得什么样的职业。这个为期三年的项目将影响16名中学教师和180名学生。暑期学习与学年期间的虚拟学习相结合。该项目将结合混合课堂教学，实践项目为基础的工作，并通过实地考察和专家研讨会介绍各种STEM职业。未来工程师将为城市学校提供3个夏季和3个学年的支持，使用单一的K-12阅读和数学适应性诊断测试，精确定位学生的需求，直至子技能水平。该项目将专门解决知识差距问题，并为促进中学STEM教育的成功教育项目提供循证数据，特别是在低收入、非裔美国学生比例较高的城市学区。通过在巴尔的摩的学校工作，影响大量学生的潜力是该项目的主要优势。尽管该项目侧重于数学教育，但涉及广泛的STEM职业，特别是与工业相关的职业（例如，诺斯罗普·格鲁曼公司）。该项目检查了项目工件（项目材料）、对项目工作人员的半结构化访谈、教学观察、与学生的焦点小组、问卷调查、调查和学校记录，这些都是可以被其他城市学区使用的数据。因此，这项研究的本质将提供有价值的信息和新的知识，当虚拟学习与课堂教学相结合时，可以提高学生对所教内容的理解。

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by preparing and interesting high achieving middle school students for advanced math courses in high school and eventually in engineering careers. The project by the Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools) and the RAND Corporation is motivated by a clear need in the U.S. to improve the representation of African-American and Latino talent pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers. The available data show that the percentage of African Americans among U.S. engineering bachelor's degree recipients has been declining for more than a decade to 3.5% in 2014. Only 1.1% of the nation's black college freshmen were enrolled in engineering programs in 2010. The project being conducted involves enrolling selected high achieving Baltimore students from schools which don't offer Algebra 1 in 8th grade. The project will offer a 6 week summer preparation program to improve their math skills and expose them to STEM careers. The students will then take a Virtual Algebra 1 class once the semester starts. Since mathematics is a key topic for STEM and lack of math skills is likely to limit some students in pursuing STEM careers, the project helps address an important need. The activities in which students will be involved include field trips and weekly seminars. In addition there is a very detailed timeline and assessment plan to measure the outcomes on all key variables. Several local school employees/teachers will be directly involved in the project. This is an advantage since it demonstrates that the project clearly has school support. These teachers will be directly developing/enabling Engineers of the Future. The criteria for selecting participants will include the following: There will be a total of 180 randomly selected, high achieving students from Baltimore City Public Schools, a lower-income urban school district with a high proportion of African-American schoolchildren. The involvement of industry professionals will provides role models for the students, giving them a look at the kind of careers they can obtain if they pursue STEM careers. The three-year project will impact 16 middle school teachers and 180 students. The summer learning is combined with virtual learning during the school year. The project will be a combination of blended classroom instruction, hands-on project-based work, and introductions to various STEM careers via field trips and seminars with professionals. Engineers of the Future will offer 3 summer and 3 academic years of support to city schools using a single K-12 adaptive diagnostic test for reading and mathematics that pinpoints student needs down to the sub-skill level. The project will specifically address gaps in knowledge and contribute to the evidence-based data on successful education programs for promoting STEM education in middle schools, especially those in lower-income, urban school districts with high proportions of African-American schoolchildren. The potential to impact a large number of students by working through Baltimore schools is a major strength of the project. Even though the project focuses on math education, a broad range of STEM careers are involved especially with industry (e.g., with Northrop Grumman). The project examines program artifacts (program materials), semi-structured interviews with program staff, observations of instruction, focus groups with students, questionnaires, surveys and school records which are the kind of data that could be used by other urban school districts. Hence, the essence of the research would provide valuable information and new knowledge of the role virtual learning has when blended with classroom instruction on improving a student's understanding of what is being taught.