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1. The Roles of Curriculum Designers and After School STEM Teachers as Environmental Features for High School Students’ STEM Career Access

   Antink-Meyer, Allison; Williams, Jeritt; Aldeman, Matthew R; Jo, Jin Ho (June 2024, Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) 2024 Annual Conference)

   To promote interest and future choices around STEM careers, afterschool and other informal education programs have become key access points for students who may face greater challenges in entering STEM career pathways. Individual, environmental (including social), and behavioral factors each interact in ways that can promote interest and access to STEM learning and career opportunities or can limit such opportunities. Teachers, programs, and curriculum are all contextual factors that are important. Using Ecological Systems Theory, this study explored the environmental structures that influenced STEM teachers and undergraduate STEM majors’ access to STEM and compared those influences to the environmental structures they perceived related to high school students access to STEM. A potential barrier between the curriculum as it is developed, and whom it is developed by, and the teachers who are responsible for implementing it came into focus in this study. Areas of conflict between the values of curriculum developers and implementers can have consequences for learners and their STEM access. 

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2. EXAMINING BLACK MALE STUDENT PARTICIPATION CHALLENGES IN A HIGH SCHOOL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING

   https://doi.org/10.1615/JWomenMinorScienEng.2023044603  

   Fletcher, Edward C.; Hines, Erik M.; Asunda, Paul; Ford, Donna Y.; Moore III, James L. (January 2023, Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering)

   In this study we followed a qualitative case study design to examine the perspectives of 20 school stakeholders (e.g., district and school administrators, school board members, teachers, school counselors, parents, staff, and advisory board members) regarding (in)equitable ways they promote and broaden the participation of Black male students in a high school academy of engineering. Using the concept of cultural matching and the formation of STEM identities, we understood that Black students at Madison River Academy did not participate in rigorous academic programs (e.g., the academy of engineering), partially due to a lack of the school stakeholders' abilities to provide culturally congruent, compatible, responsive, or synchronized learning environments that connected them with their home cultures and lived experiences. Findings from our case study demonstrate how the change in the historical mission of career academies has limited access to rigorous STEM opportunities and engagement of ethnically and racially diverse (particularly Black) students. In this academy, the lack of Black male student and teacher representation as well as mathematics were two barriers limiting the engagement of Black male students. Thus, we contend that it is critical that STEM academy school stakeholders, particularly school leaders, prioritize equity as a strategic goal for their STEM programs and recruit Black teachers who are willing to create culturally responsive curricular experiences to elicit interest in STEM for Black students. 

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3. An After-school STEM Program with a Novel Equitable and Inclusive Structure

   Matthew Aldeman, Jeritt Williams (June 2023, Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education 2023 Annual Conference)

   An interdisciplinary team of faculty, staff, and students at Illinois State University is partnering with the Chicago Public Schools district (CPS) and non-profit Community-Based Organizations in four Chicago neighborhoods to create a new after-school STEM program known as SUPERCHARGE. Funded by NSF, the primary purpose of the project is to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups who pursue STEM fields at the postsecondary level. Faculty from STEM and STEM education program areas as well as the National Center for Urban Education at Illinois State University comprise the leadership team for the project. Guided by the National Research Council’s STEM Learning Ecosystem Model, SUPERCHARGE will contribute to the disruption of inequities that hinder access to STEM career pipelines for participants by serving as a bridge between informal high school academic experiences, STEM-related higher education programs, and STEM-related career pathways. Research to determine the impact of the program on students' interest, understanding, and self-efficacy towards STEM careers, as well as teachers and undergraduate students’ understanding of promoting change, will also be conducted. The Partnerships in Education and Resilience (PEAR) Common Instrument for students and teachers, and interviews with stakeholders are being used to support data gathering and program feedback. These data sources will be used for program assessment and future research. 

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4. Integrating Professional Mentorship with a 3D-Printing Curriculum to Help Rural Youth Forge STEM Career Connections.

   Bhaduri, S. (July 2021, 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference.)

   Economically disadvantaged youth residing in mountain tourist communities represent an important and understudied rural population. These communities typically include a large percentage of children that are English language learners. Our NSF STEM Career Connections project, A Model for Preparing Economically-Disadvantaged Rural Youth for the Future STEM Workplace, investigates strategies that help middle school youth in these communities to envision a broader range of workforce opportunities, especially in STEM and computing careers. This poster highlights the initial findings of an innovative model that involves working with local schools and community partners to support the integration of local career contexts, engineering phenomena, 3D printing technologies, career connections, and mentorship into formal educational experiences to motivate and prepare rural youth for future STEM careers. We focus on select classrooms at two middle schools and describe the implementation of a novel 3D printing curriculum during the 2020-2021 school-year. Two STEM teachers implemented the five-week curriculum with approximately 300 students per quarter. To create a rich inquiry-driven learning environment, the curriculum uses an instructional design approach called storylining. This approach is intended to promote coherence, relevance, and meaning from the students’ perspectives by using students’ questions to drive investigations and lessons. Students worked towards answering the question: “How can we support animals with physical disabilities so they can perform daily activities independently?” Students engaged in the engineering design process by defining, developing, and optimizing solutions to develop and print prosthetic limbs for animals with disabilities using 3D modeling, a unique augmented reality application, and 3D printing. In order to embed connections to STEM careers and career pathways, some students received mentorship and guidance from local STEM professionals who work in related fields. This poster will describe the curriculum and its implementation across two quarters at two middle schools in the US rural mountain west, as well as the impact on students’ interest in STEM and computing careers. During the first quarter students engaged in the 3D printing curriculum, but did not have access to the STEM career and career pathway connections mentorship piece. During the second quarter, the project established a partnership with a local STEM business -- a medical research institute that utilizes 3D printing and scanning for creating human surgical devices and procedures -- to provide mentorship to the students. Volunteers from this institute served as ongoing mentors for the students in each classroom during the second quarter. The STEM mentors guided students through the process of designing, testing, and optimizing their 3D models and 3D printed prosthetics, providing insights into how students’ learning directly applies to the medical industry. Different forms of student data such as cognitive interviews and pre/post STEM interest and spatial thinking surveys were collected and analyzed to understand the benefits of the career connections mentorship component. Preliminary findings suggest the relationship between local STEM businesses and students is important to motivate youth from rural areas to see themselves being successful in STEM careers and helping them to realize the benefits of engaging with emerging engineering technologies. 

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5. Partnering Middle School Teachers, Industry, and Academic to Bring Engineering to the Science Classroom

   Carrico, C.; Grohs, J.R.; Matusovich, H.M.; Kirk, G.R.; Schilling, M.R. (July 2021, 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)

   Despite limited success in broadening participation in engineering with rural and Appalachian youth, there remain challenges such as misunderstandings around engineering careers, misalignments with youth’s sociocultural background, and other environmental barriers. In addition, middle school science teachers may be unfamiliar with engineering or how to integrate engineering concepts into science lessons. Furthermore, teachers interested in incorporating engineering into their curriculum may not have the time or resources to do so. The result may be single interventions such as a professional development workshop for teachers or a career day for students. However, those are unlikely to cause major change or sustained interest development. To address these challenges, we have undertaken our NSF ITEST project titled, Virginia Tech Partnering with Educators and Engineers in Rural Schools (VT PEERS). Through this project, we sought to improve youth awareness of and preparation for engineering related careers and educational pathways. Utilizing regular engagement in engineering-aligned classroom activities and culturally relevant programming, we sought to spark an interest with some students. In addition, our project involves a partnership with teachers, school districts, and local industry to provide a holistic and, hopefully, sustainable influence. By engaging over time we aspired to promote sustainability beyond this NSF project via increased teacher confidence with engineering related activities, continued integration within their science curriculum, and continued relationships with local industry. From the 2017-2020 school years the project has been in seven schools across three rural counties. Each year a grade level was added; that is, the teachers and students from the first year remained for all three years. Year 1 included eight 6th grade science teachers, year 2 added eight 7th grade science teachers, and year 3 added three 8th grade science teachers and a career and technology teacher. The number of students increased from over 500 students in year 1 to over 2500 in year 3. Our three industry partners have remained active throughout the project. During the third and final year in the classrooms, we focused on the sustainable aspects of the project. In particular, on how the intervention support has evolved each year based on data, support requests from the school divisions, and in scaffolding “ownership” of the engineering activities. Qualitative data were used to support our understanding of teachers’ confidence to incorporate engineering into their lessons plans and how their confidence changed over time. Noteworthy, our student data analysis resulted in an instrument change for the third year; however due to COVID, pre and post data was limited to schools who taught on a semester basis. Throughout the project we have utilized the ITEST STEM Workforce Education Helix model to support a pragmatic approach of our research informing our practice to enable an “iterative relationship between STEM content development and STEM career development activities… within the cultural context of schools, with teachers supported by professional development, and through programs supported by effective partnerships.” For example, over the course of the project, scaffolding from the University leading interventions to teachers leading interventions occurred. 

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