SCC-PG: Exploring STEM Educational Delivery for Youth in Norfolk Juvenile Detention Center

被拘留青年是一个在教育机会方面存在差距的群体，特别是系统性地减少了STEM学习的丰富机会。被拘留青年获得教育资源和STEM学习对于使他们拥有市场化的就业技能并可能为未来的STEM劳动力做出贡献至关重要。该项目从COVID-19大流行带来的条件和挑战中汲取经验教训，旨在开发和提供一个青少年个人学习环境，这是一个教育生态系统，广泛的被拘留青少年学习者可以使用，并根据青少年与系统的互动提供个性化定制。为了开发这一系统，该项目从一个多学科少年司法社区协作工作组获得投入，该工作组审查了现有的教育基础设施，确定了挑战和能力，并为个性化学习系统的设计和交付提供了投入。这项研究的成果将是一个框架，以促进STEM学习被拘留的青少年使用智能和连接技术。该项目发生在诺福克少年拘留中心（NJDC）的背景下。这项工作追求一系列研究问题，旨在确定影响STEM学习和教育服务可及性的障碍和因素，流行病条件如何改变这些挑战，并预测提供个性化学习STEM教育生态系统的预测挑战。利益相关者，包括该中心的学术人员，管理层，公立学校系统和与少年司法相关的人员，形成了一个焦点小组，参与讨论当前的教育生态系统和设计功能，以支持更强的STEM学习个性化系统。参与者的反应将被提炼成设计原则，使用扎根理论，将指导个性化学习系统的设计和开发。该研究的主要成果将是一个案例研究，描述了个性化学习系统的框架和它所依赖的设计原则。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得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的支持。

Detained youth are a population that experience disparities in educational opportunities and in particular, have systemically fewer rich opportunities for STEM learning. Access to educational resources and STEM learning for detained youth are critical to position them to have marketable employment skills and potentially contribute to the STEM workforce of the future. Taking lessons from the conditions and challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this project seeks to develop and deliver a Personal Learning Environment for Youth, an educational ecosystem that is accessible to a wide range of detained youth learners and provides individual tailoring based on youth interactions with the system. To develop the system, the project takes input from a multidisciplinary juvenile justice community collaborative working group that examines the existing educational infrastructure, determines challenges and affordances, and provides input into the design and delivery of the personalized learning system. The outcome of this research will be a framework for facilitating STEM learning for detained youth using smart and connected technologies.The project takes place in the context of the Norfolk Juvenile Detention Center (NJDC). The work pursues a set of research questions that seek to identify the barriers and factors impacting accessibility to STEM learning and educational services, how the pandemic conditions changed those challenges, and anticipates the predicted challenges to delivering a personalized learning STEM education ecosystem. Stakeholders, including the center's academic staff, management, the public school system, and personnel related to juvenile justice, form a focus group engaged in conversation about the current educational ecosystem and the design features that would support stronger STEM learning for a personalized system. Participant responses will be distilled into design principles using grounded theory that will guide the design and development of the personalized learning system. The primary outcome of the research will be a case study that describes the framework for the personalized learning system and the design principles on which it rests.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.