Collaborative Research: Head Start on Engineering: Developing a Learning Community to Study and Support Family-level Interest in Engineering

理解和支持幼儿兴趣发展有几个关键原因：(A)作为参与和学习的主要动机；(B)学龄前兴趣发展预测小学早期重要的学习结果和行为；(C)幼儿兴趣激励正在进行的兴趣发展。因此，人们越来越认识到，兴趣不仅重要，而且是教育和学习的基础。Head Start on Engineering(HSE)是一个多组成部分、双语(西班牙语/英语)、以家庭为重点的项目，旨在(1)培养来自低收入家庭的学龄前儿童家庭对工程设计过程的长期兴趣，(2)支持家庭发展和幼儿园准备目标。HSE计划是与Head Start社区共同开发的，为家庭提供适合发展的、基于故事的工程设计挑战，然后将这些挑战与具有战略一致性的非正式STEM教育(ISE)经验和资源系统联系起来。目前的HSE系统项目建立在以前的HSE Path项目的基础上，该项目(A)确立了参与的家庭培养与工程相关的持久兴趣；(B)强调了Head Start社区对该计划和伙伴关系的价值；以及(C)对幼儿兴趣发展产生了一种新颖的、系统的观点。HSE系统的目标是开发和测试幼儿STEM参与的模型，并增进有关家庭如何从学龄前到幼儿园培养对STEM的兴趣的知识。通过基于设计的实施研究(DBIR)过程，团队将使用来自员工、家庭和合作伙伴的持续反馈和数据反复完善和改进HSE计划和变革理论。它还旨在探索随着儿童进入幼儿园，项目在更长时间内对家庭兴趣发展的影响。DBIR的工作将主要集中在项目模型问题上，而案例研究将集中在家庭兴趣问题上，两者相互影响。初步工作围绕一系列反馈和设计测试周期进行组织，以收集家庭和其他利益相关者的意见，与家庭和工作人员合作更新计划组成部分和活动，并为全面实施做好准备。在下一阶段，团队将实施全计划模式，包括六个Head Start教室，并将家庭经历和兴趣发展跟踪到幼儿园。在最后的实施阶段，该团队将完成数据收集，对所有数据进行回顾分析，并更新计划模型和变革理论。该项目由推进非正式STEM学习(AISL)计划资助，该计划旨在促进对非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。它将直接满足AISL计划的目标，扩大低收入社区获得幼儿非正式STEM教育的机会，重点是说西班牙语的家庭，并建立长期技能和学习倾向，以支持学校内外的STEM学习。除了工程学的主题，HSE还支持Head Start学校准备和儿童和家庭发展目标，这是终身成功的基础。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。

There are several critical reasons to understand and support interest development in early childhood: (a) as a primary motivator of engagement and learning; (b) interest development in preschool predicts important learning outcomes and behaviors in early elementary school; and (c) early childhood interests motivate ongoing interest development. Thus, there is growing recognition that interest is not just important but fundamental to education and learning. Head Start on Engineering (HSE) is a multi-component, bilingual (Spanish/English), family-focused program designed to (1) foster long-term interest in the engineering design process for families with preschool children from low-income backgrounds and (2) support family development and kindergarten readiness goals. The HSE program, co-developed with the Head Start community, provides families with developmentally appropriate, story-based engineering design challenges for the home and then connects these to a system of strategically aligned Informal STEM Education (ISE) experiences and resources. This current project, HSE Systems, builds on a previous HSE Pathways project which (a) established that participating families develop persistent engineering-related interests; (b) highlighted the value that the Head Start community has for the program and partnership; and (c) generated a novel, systems perspective on early childhood interest development. The aim of HSE Systems is to develop and test a model of early childhood STEM engagement and advance knowledge of how the family as a system develops interest in STEM from preschool into kindergarten.Through the Design Based Implementation Research (DBIR) process, the team will iteratively refine and improve the HSE program and theory of change using ongoing feedback and data from staff, families, and partners. It is also designed to explore program impacts on family interest development over a longer period, as children enter kindergarten. The DBIR work will focus primarily on the program model questions, while the case study research will focus on the family interest questions, with both strands informing each other. The initial work is organized around a series of feedback and design-testing cycles to gather input from families and other stakeholders, update the program components and activities in collaboration with families and staff, and prepare for full implementation. During the next phase, the team will implement the full program model with six Head Start classrooms and track family experiences and interest development into kindergarten. During final implementation phase, the team will finish data collection, conduct retrospective analysis with all the data, and update the program model and theory of change.This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. It will directly address the AISL program goals by broadening access to early childhood informal STEM education for low-income communities, with a focus on Spanish-speaking families, and building long-term skills and learning dispositions to support STEM learning inside and outside of school. Beyond the topic of engineering, HSE supports Head Start school readiness and child and family development goals, which are the foundation of lifelong success.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.