CAREER: Creating a model for teachers to bridge cultural divides and provide students with culturally relevant pedagogy

该项目旨在通过更好地了解教师培训和课程资源如何使课程与这些学生相关并具有吸引力，从而增加非弱势群体学生在学校获得的支持。与文化相关的教育使学生多样化的观点和经历的价值可见，并可能更好地支持STEM中服务不足的学生。虽然文化相关的教育方法是强大的，但它们依赖于教师在学生文化中的能力来实施。在服务不足的社区教学的大多数人不太可能与来自非优势群体的学生分享背景和经验。这意味着教师可能无法有效地实施与文化相关的做法，也无法有效地教授来自非主导社区的学生。该项目旨在提高该领域对来自不同文化背景的STEM教师如何采取文化响应方法的理解。该策略是调查在职教师对Iñupiaq学习框架的使用情况，该框架是由阿拉斯加北极地区的Iñupiat社区开发的，以Iñupiaq价值观和文化为中心。该项目概括了这一特殊情况的发现，为支持教师向来自非优势群体的学生提供与文化相关的教学方法提供了一个模式。这是一个教师早期职业发展计划项目，响应国家科学基金会范围内的活动，提供最负盛名的奖项，以支持有潜力在研究和教育中成为学术榜样的早期职业教师。本项目由EHR核心研究项目资助。项目目标将通过一系列以教师为中心的专业发展活动在阿拉斯加Utqiaġvik的北坡学区实现，在那里教师熟悉Iñupiaq学习框架。由于该地区的大多数教师都不是阿拉斯加本地人，而是来自美国其他地区，因此该项目正在研究他们如何在课堂上解释、适应和使用该框架。该项目扩展了现有的研究，以土著知识为重点，通过捕捉12名参与社区设计过程的“外来”教师（定义为非土著Iñupiat）的经验来调查教师的成长。通过与Iñupiat社区成员合作，确定社区感兴趣的问题和探索这些问题的资源，该项目正在开发基于地点的科学探究活动，将Iñupiaq文化与西方科学实践相结合。最后，为了支持在课堂上实施设计的活动，这些教师正在与学生和社区成员一起在学习社区中实施和调整课堂上的模块。该项目介绍了如何利用参与社区设计来支持“外来者”STEM教师开展尊重社区文化和价值观的课堂实践。这项工作的成果包括面向Iñupiat学生的与文化相关的课程，该课程将在收集基于地点的材料的课程存储库中提供。其他产品包括回答“局外人”如何理解以与文化相关的方式教育学生的问题的研究结果。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。

This project aims to increase the support students from non-dominant groups receive in schools by understanding better how teacher training and curricular resources can make curricula relevant and compelling to those students. Culturally relevant education makes visible the value of students’ diverse perspectives and experiences and may better support underserved students in STEM. While culturally relevant educational approaches are powerful, they rely on the teachers' competence in the culture of their students for implementation. The majority of those teaching in underserved communities are unlikely to share backgrounds and experiences with students from non-dominant groups. This means that teachers may be under-equipped to meaningfully implement culturally relevant practices or otherwise effectively teach students from non-dominant communities. This project aims to improve the field's understanding of how STEM teachers who come from cultural backgrounds that are different from their students, take up culturally responsive approaches. The strategy is to investigate in-service teachers’ use of the Iñupiaq Learning Framework—a framework developed by the Iñupiat community in Arctic Alaska and centered on Iñupiaq values and culture. The project is generalizing findings from this particular situation to provide a model for supporting teachers to provide culturally relevant pedagogy to students from non-dominant groups. This is a Faculty Early Career Development Program project responsive to a National Science Foundation-wide activity that offers the most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education. This project is funded by the EHR Core Research program.Project objectives will be accomplished through a series of teacher-focused professional development activities in the North Slope Borough School District in Utqiaġvik, Alaska, where teachers are familiar with the Iñupiaq Learning Framework. Because the majority of teachers in the district are not Native Alaskan and are from other parts of the U.S., the project is studying how they interpret, adapt, and use the framework in their classrooms. The project expands upon existing studies investigating teacher growth when Indigenous knowledge is the focus by capturing the experiences of 12 "outsider" teachers (defined as those who are not native Iñupiat) who participate in a community-based design process. By collaborating with Iñupiat community members to identify problems of interest to the community and resources to explore these problems, the project is developing place-based science inquiry activities that intersect Iñupiaq culture with Western science practices. Finally, to support the implementation of the designed activities in the classroom, the same teachers are working together with students and community members in a learning community to implement and adapt the modules in their classrooms. This project is providing an account of how participation in community-based design can be used to support "outsider" STEM teachers in taking up classroom practices that honor community culture and values. Products of this work include a culturally relevant curriculum for Iñupiat students that will be available in a curriculum repository that collects place-based materials. Other products include research results that answer questions about how "outsiders" come to understand ways of instructing students in culturally relevant ways.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.