Developing a Network to Coordinate Research on Equity Practices and Cultures in STEM Maker Education

美国国家科学基金会的研究协调网络（RCN）计划的目标是通过支持研究人员团体在学科，组织，地理和国际边界上沟通和协调他们的研究，培训和教育活动，从而推动一个领域或创造新的研究或教育方向。该RCN将汇集在STEM教育中公平和跨学科交叉点工作的学者和从业者。制作是一种文化，强调通过在非正式，同伴主导和创造性的社会环境中进行兴趣驱动的学习。 全国各地开发了数百个创客空间和以创客为导向的课堂教学。 创客空间通常包括计算机设计、3D打印机和激光切割机等数字技术，但也可能包括传统工艺或各种艺术家驱动的创作。 该项目的驱动目的是通过追求共同的研究问题，共享资源，并在多个实践工作场所孵化紧急调查和知识，共同扩大以STEM为重点的制造商在美国的参与。该网络旨在建设研究和知识能力，建立重要和深远的机制，以利用学者，从业人员和城市和农村地区的正规和非正规教育合作伙伴扩展网络的核心群体的共同努力，为STEM中代表性不足的群体提供服务。创客学习空间可以成为STEM学习走向公平的特别富有成效的空间，因为它们促进了兴趣驱动的、集体的和以社区为导向的学习，从而促进了社会和社区的变革。 该网络将由来自美国不同地理区域的多机构和多学科研究人员组成的小组领导，并由一个由决策和公平领域的著名研究人员和从业人员组成的指导委员会提供指导，以促进网络活动。公平的过程植根于对理解和建立在STEM边缘化社区的技能，实践，价值观和知识的承诺。该研究网络旨在填补目前对制作和公平的理解中的空白，包括不同项目定义公平和制作中的STEM的许多方式。该项目将调查现有的研究领域，以建立一个动态和有凝聚力的理解，使学习者的STEM思想，社区和历史的制作方式。此外，该网络还将为网络合作伙伴合作开发中心研究问题。除其他活动外，该网络将为基于社区的研究中合乎道德和有前途的做法建立一个资料库，并汇总各地点的数据。该网络将支持全国各地的多种制造空间，研究机构和社区组织之间的合作，以分享数据，方法，与当地社区联系的方式以及STEM技能和实践的强大整合方法。 项目的影响将包括新的研究伙伴关系，与决策和公平相关的研究的传播中心，研究人员和从业人员的专业发展，以及利用关于决策价值和实践的集体研究结果，以改善在非正式学习环境中实现STEM丰富决策整合的方法。该项目由NSF的推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划资助，该计划支持在各种环境中使用的创新研究，方法和资源。作为促进非正式环境中学习的整体战略的一部分，推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划资助创新研究、方法和资源，用于各种环境。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力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 the National Science Foundation’s Research Coordination Network (RCN) program is to advance a field or create new directions in research or education by supporting groups of investigators to communicate and coordinate their research, training and educational activities across disciplinary, organizational, geographic and international boundaries. This RCN will bring together scholars and practitioners working at the intersection of equity and interdisciplinary making in STEM education. Making is a culture that emphasizes interest-driven learning by doing within an informal, peer-led and creative social environment. Hundreds of maker spaces and maker-oriented classroom pedagogies have developed across the country. Maker spaces often include digital technologies such as computer design, 3-D printers, and laser cutters, but may also include traditional crafts or a variety of artist-driven creations. The driving purpose of the project is to collectively broaden STEM-focused maker participation in the United States through pursuing common research questions, sharing resources, and incubating emergent inquiry and knowledge across multiple working sites of practice. The network aims to build capacity for research and knowledge, building in consequential and far-reaching mechanisms to leverage combined efforts of a core group of scholars, practitioners, and an extended network of formal and informal education partners in urban and rural sites serving people from groups underrepresented in STEM. Maker learning spaces can be particularly fruitful spaces for STEM learning toward equity because they foster interest-driven, collective, and community-oriented learning in making for social and community change. The network will be led by a team of multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary researchers from different geographic regions of the United States and guided by a steering committee of prominent researchers and practitioners in making and equity will convene to facilitate network activities. Equitable processes are rooted in a commitment to understand and build on the skills, practices, values, and knowledge of communities marginalized in STEM. The research network aims to fill in gaps in current understandings about making and equity, including the many ways different projects define equity and STEM in making. The project will survey the existing research terrain to develop a dynamic and cohesive understanding of making that connects to learners' STEM ideas, communities, and historical ways of making. Additionally, the network will collaboratively develop central research questions for network partners. The network will create a repository for ethical and promising practices in community-based research and aggregate data across sites, among other activities. The network will support collaboration across a multiplicity of making spaces, research institutions, and community organizations throughout the country to share data, methodologies, ways of connecting to local communities and approaches to robust integration of STEM skills and practices. Project impacts will include new research partnerships, a dissemination hub for research related to making and equity, professional development for researchers and practitioners, and leveraging collective research findings about making values and practices to improve approaches to STEM-rich making integration in informal learning environments. The project is funded by NSF's Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of settings. As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of settings.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.