Engaging Native American Students in STEM Career Development Through a Culturally-Responsive After-School Program Using Virtual Environments and 3-D Printing

该项目将开发和研究一个课后项目，旨在提高美国土著中学生的STEM职业兴趣和动机。学生们将使用数字技术，包括虚拟现实（VR）、增强现实（AR）和3D打印，通过项目的文化响应、基于问题的学习教育模块来解决空间设计问题。通过课后教育者、社区成员和学生的共同设计过程，该项目将把历史和当代文化知识融入到与美洲原住民学生相关的学习环境的发展中。这个项目的目标受众是来自俄克拉荷马州三个部落国家的中学生和课后教育工作者。该项目将推进三个部落国家（波尼族、波塔瓦托米公民和奇卡索族）的基础设施和课后STEM项目的能力。250多名美国原住民学生将参加由教育者通过暑期专业发展项目提供的课后项目。该项目将创建技术中心和包容性课程，以支持社区定义的黑客马拉松，让家庭和部落公民以优先考虑每个部落国家的实践、知识、技能和价值观的方式接触新的工作场所技术（VR、AR、3D打印）。项目研究将侧重于课后项目对美国土著青年的影响以及与他们的STEM职业发展相关的变量。该项目的研究计划借鉴了当代土著学者关于个人和科学认同发展对美洲土著职业态度的作用的研究。本研究将采用混合方法。来自观察、焦点小组、叙述性项目报告和职业生涯评估方法的定性数据将探讨项目对青少年STEM身份和参与的影响。前后定量测量将评估学生的兴趣、动机、空间学习和STEM身份。该项目将把其研究成果、课后课程资源和数字文物库提供给其他部落国家和课后项目。从这项研究中获得的知识和见解将为项目资源的有效性提供证据，并将增加与社区共同创建的文化响应计划的知识库。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 project will develop and research an after-school program that is designed to increase the STEM career interests and motivations of Native American middle-school students. Students will use digital technologies, including virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and 3D printing, to solve spatial design problems presented through the project’s culturally responsive, problem-based learning education modules. Through a generative co-design process involving after-school educators, community members, and students, the project will incorporate historical and contemporary cultural knowledge in the development of learning environments that are relevant to Native American students. The target audiences for this project are middle-school students and after-school educators from three Tribal Nations in Oklahoma. The project will advance the infrastructure and capacity for after-school STEM programs in three Tribal Nations, the Pawnee, Citizen Potawatomi, and the Chickasaw Nations. Over 250 Native American students will be served in after-school programs that are facilitated by educators prepared through summer professional development programs. The project will create technology centers and an inclusive curriculum to support the community-defined hackathons where family and Tribal citizens are exposed to new workplace technologies (VR, AR, 3D printing) in a way that prioritizes the practices, knowledge, skills, and values of each Tribal Nation. Project research will focus on the impacts of the after-school programs on Native American youth and variables relevant their STEM career development. The project research plan draws on contemporary indigenous scholarship about the role of personal and science identity development on the career attitudes of Native American. Mixed methods will be employed in this research. Qualitative data from observations, focus groups, narrative program reports, and career life assessment approaches will explore the program impacts on youth STEM identity and engagement. Pre-post quantitative measures will assess student interest, motivation, spatial learning, and STEM identity. The project will make its research findings, after-school curricular resources, and a digital artifact repository available online for other Tribal Nations and after-school programs. The knowledge and insights gained from this research will provide evidence for the usefulness of project resources and will add to the knowledge base on developing culturally responsive programs that are co-created with the community. 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.