Developing a culturally responsive pedagogical framework for STEM self-efficacy and career interest in the middle grades

该项目的目标是通过在纳瓦霍族青年在中学的关键学业发展阶段，通过相关和有意义的综合STEM经验，提高他们的STEM自我效能感和职业兴趣。为了实现这一目标，该项目与主要利益相关者团体合作，共同制定了一套符合纳瓦霍民族文化框架、利益和需求的STEM教育指导方针。该指南用于支持为纳瓦霍族学生服务的农村中学的教师专业发展计划和学生课程的设计和实施。负责制定指导方针的工作组将包括来自纳瓦霍民族、STEM专业组织和dine<s:1>教育领导人的代表。该项目让教师参与专业发展课程，在课程中他们评估和讨论如何将STEM教育中的文化能力指南应用到中学环境中，学习如何使用数据驱动的可视化来支持STEM学科整合，并为学生设计和实施基于项目的学习单元，这些单元具有丰富的技术和文化响应性。参与的教师全年都有专业发展和技术援助支持，因为他们实施基于项目的STEM课程单元，重点是为已确定的社区主题创建数据驱动的可视化。项目活动将提高参与的教师在课堂上运用技术的能力和信心，以适应其学生和社区的文化框架和观点。项目可交付成果（指导方针、专业发展模式和学生STEM课程）将提供给教育领导者和感兴趣的从业者，以支持他们自己向具有文化竞争力的STEM过渡。该项目旨在促进有关工具和战略的知识，以改变土著学生的STEM教学和学习经验。该项目的成功可以推动为土著学生服务的学校和地区更大规模地改变STEM教育政策和实践。该项目遵循基于设计的研究方法。项目研究将包括开发、实施、分析和重新设计的多个迭代周期，每组两所学校（估计总共有60名教师和1500名学生）。在实施和改进专业发展模式的每个周期中，项目合作伙伴根据利益相关者的意见分析和改进他们的研究工具和过程。在教师变革方面，本项目通过调查方法评估教师效能和感知能力。对专业发展的观察、焦点小组以及对教师教案和单元的分析也将为教师数据的分析提供信息。学生的影响通过职业兴趣和学习激活调查、课程嵌入评估、学生学习观察和形成性反馈来衡量。项目研究的分层重点与文化能力和数据驱动可视化的创建将为教师学习体验的未来设计提供信息，通过技术丰富、文化相关和以社区为中心的项目培养学生对STEM的兴趣和效率。有关使用共同创建的文化能力指南来指导教师专业发展和学生课程单元设计的有效性的研究结果可用于为STEM教育中代表性不足的群体提供一套指导原则的制定。该项目由“面向学生和教师的创新技术体验”（ITEST）项目资助，该项目支持有助于提高学生对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）以及信息和通信技术（ICT）职业的知识和兴趣的实践、项目要素、背景和过程的理解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The goal of this project is to promote STEM self-efficacy and career interest among youth from the Navajo Nation through relevant and meaningful experiences with integrated STEM during their critical academic development years in middle school. To achieve this goal, the project partners with key stakeholder groups to co-create of a set of guidelines for STEM education that align to the cultural frameworks, interests, and needs of the Navajo Nation. The guidelines are used to support the design and implementation of a teacher professional development program and student curriculum for rural middle schools serving students from the Navajo Nation. The working groups charged with developing the guidelines will include representatives from the Navajo Nation, STEM professional organizations, and Diné Education leaders. The project engages teachers in professional development sessions in which they evaluate and discuss ways to apply the guidelines for cultural competence in STEM education to the middle-school context, learn how to use data-driven visualizations to support STEM disciplinary integration, and design and implement project-based learning units for their students that are technology rich and culturally responsive. Participating teachers have professional development and technical assistance support throughout the year as they implement a project-based STEM curricular unit focused on creation of data-driven visualizations of an identified community topic. The project activities will improve participating teachers' competence and confidence in working with technology in their classrooms in a way that is responsive to the cultural frameworks and perspectives of their students and communities. Project deliverables (guidelines, professional development model, and student STEM curriculum) will be available to education leaders and interested practitioners to support their own transition to culturally competent STEM. The project seeks to advance knowledge regarding tools and strategies for transforming STEM teaching and learning experiences for Indigenous students. Success of the project can lead to larger scale-up efforts to transform STEM education policy and practice for schools anddistricts serving Indigenous students.The project follows a design-based research methodology. The project research will include multiple iterative cycles of development, implementation, analysis, and redesign with three cohorts of two schools each (estimated total of 60 teachers and 1,500 students). Throughout each cycle of implementation and improvement of the professional development model, the project partners analyze and refine their research instruments and process, with input from stakeholders. With respect to teacher change, the project assesses teacher efficacy and perceived competence through survey measures. Observations of the professional development, focus groups, and analyses of the teachers’ lesson plans and units will also inform the analysis of data from teachers. Student impacts are measured through career interest and learning activation surveys, curriculum embedded assessments, observations of student learning, and formative feedback. The layered focus of project research with cultural competence and creation of data-driven visualizations will inform the future design of teacher learning experiences that foster student interest and efficacy in STEM through technology-rich, culturally relevant, and community focused projects. The research findings related to the effectiveness of using co-created guidelines for cultural competence to guide the design of teacher professional development and student curricular units can be used to inform the development of a set of guiding principles for STEM education serving under-represented groups in STEM.This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers.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.