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Intercultural awareness, communication and competence have become critical professional skills. Teachers at all levels need these skills to ensure that all students in their classroom have equitable access to learning, and to effectively prepare their students to engage in an increasingly diverse and multicultural world. The US Department of Education has made broader global skills for students a priority and has charged colleges,and schools to provide new learning opportunities and course work to successfully develop these skills in teachers. Similarly, Some argue that international travel is integral to teacher preparation, encouraging a sense of “otherness” and an appreciation for the role of human difference, addressing misconceptions and stereotypes, and challenging teachers’ understanding of their “professional self.” Additionally, It is well established that the US has a need for enhanced participation as well as increased racial and gender diversity in the STEM Fields, particularly engineering. Teachers are critical to inspire and motivate students to consider pursuing STEM. However, stereotypes, and bias can impact how they engage with students, and who they believe “has what it takes to be an engineer.” Enhancing the cultural competence of teachers can help mitigate the bias and stereotypes, and help ensure more equitable access for students to being inspired to pursue STEM. To address these issues, two regional universities collaborated on a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Teachers grant to provide transformative international and intercultural experiences for teachers focused on human-centered design and appropriate technology for developing countries. Integrated throughout this experience, is professional learning aimed at developing the cultural competence of the teachers, and coaching to help the teachers integrate this learning, as well as their engineering experiences into their classrooms. This paper will summarize key findings from two cohorts of participants with a focus on how this experience impacted the cultural competence of the teachers.
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This content will become publicly available on December 2, 2025
The World Smarts STEM Challenge: A promising approach to fostering STEM and global competence skills for adolescents in the US and Ghana
Given the increasingly global nature of work, the global workforce needs STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) workers who have both STEM content knowledgeandintercultural competence. This study reports on findings from a 10-week bi-national virtual STEM challenge, the World Smarts STEM Challenge, that brought adolescents in the United States and Ghana together to complete a STEM learning program. There were 114 participants from Ghana (female = 56%) and 95 from the US (female = 48%);Mage= 16.21 years,SD= 1.65. In Ghana 100% of participants identified as ethnically Ghanaian and in the US participants identified as Black/African-American (50%), Latino/a/x or Hispanic (23.9%), Asian/Asian-American (7.6%), White/European-American (7.6%), bi-racial or multi-racial (7.6%), and “other” (3.3%). After the Challenge, participants increased in awareness of global issues, and engagement with others, but also showed a small but significant decrease in respect for people from other cultural backgrounds. Girls demonstrated an increase in global-mindedness in both countries and Ghanaian participants reported an increase in self-efficacy for global issues and demonstrated significant growth in both STEM ability self-concept and STEM activism orientation. Findings suggest the value of virtual STEM Challenges for building both STEM and global competence skills.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2048417
- PAR ID:
- 10559522
- Publisher / Repository:
- PlosOne
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- PLOS ONE
- Volume:
- 19
- Issue:
- 12
- ISSN:
- 1932-6203
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- e0311116
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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