ITEST Resources

Three 9-year-old girls are huddled around a Caesar wheel, an ancient tool for sharing secret messages. Cracking a code is one of many challenges the girls complete to help characters in CryptoComics escape a mysterious cyberworld into which they’ve been drawn. CryptoComics is a curriculum designed to teach elementary school children – particularly girls of color – about cybersecurity – the practice of keeping digital information safe – and related careers. It also teaches about cryptology – the science of making and breaking codes. The girls partake in this program as part of their after

Youth residing in mountain tourist communities represent an important and underserved rural population. Science, engineering, and computing are hidden within the daily workforce practices in these communities, unlike large metropolitan areas where technology jobs are prominent in the local culture. Youth in rural communities may think that Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers require them to leave their communities, which can disincentivize academic preparations [1, 2]. Youth career experiences through in-school and out-of-school programs are often general in nature

In response to the need to broaden participation in computer science, we designed a summer camp to teach middle-school-aged youth to code apps with MIT App Inventor. For the past four summers, we have observed significant gains in youth’s interest and self-efficacy in computer science, after attending our camps. The ma- jority of these youth, however, were youth from our local community. To provide equal access across the state and secure more diversity, we were interested in examining the effect of the camp on a broader population of youth. Thus, we partnered with an outreach program to reach

Modeling is key to how scientists help explain complex phenomena—from the coronavirus pandemic to climate change—and explore scientific and engineering problems. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) recognize the importance of Systems and Systems Models as one of the crosscutting concepts, and Developing and Using Models and Using Computational Thinking as two of the science and engineering practices. These capabilities are important in order to understand responses to the pandemic and to solve other pressing problems like water pollution and freshwater scarcity.

The survey results indicate that program participation improves students’ attitudes toward science in several ways. Students indicated that they were considerably more engaged in the science of sound activities than in a generic science activity (question A) or in their typical science classes (question E). Significantly, they were much more likely to agree or strongly agree that while the science of sound was taking place (E-post), science was one of their favorite subjects (71%), their preference for science at other times (E-pre) was much lower (42%). It is remarkable that for so many

With the shortage of cybersecurity professionals, there is a critical need to train more young-generation cybersecurity professionals to fill the gap. In this work, we designed interactive activities that make abstract cybersecurity concepts more tangible by using exciting new mixed reality (MR) technology to teach cybersecurity skills and raise the potential interest in cybersecurity careers for middle school students. We plan to analyze the immersive experience, situational interest, and workload after the experiment to study the participants' learning performance and user experience.

In this policy brief, Walkington and Bernacki discuss personalized learning (PL) and argue that if schools are to achieve the impact on learning outcomes they envision, they can draw upon what is known about students’ interests, values, self-regulation, and mastery, and how to leverage them for learning. The theory of change at the center of a PL design should answer: “What learning outcome do I intend to affect? What learning activities address this aim? What would I need to know about the learner to adapt the activity?” The authors provide advice to those who wish to fund, adopt, design, and

Implementing a technology-mediated learning environment is a challenge for teachers. They have to not only use the learning materials effectively (pedagogical content knowledge) but also integrate the technology that mediates the learning. It is important that prior to the implementation of technology-mediated learning content in the classroom, teachers feel confident on how to use the technology. Therefore, an effective professional development should be provided to the teachers. This paper includes details of the design and conduct of a professional development workshop on a technology

Societal stereotypes depict girls as less interested than boys in computer science and engineering. We demonstrate the existence of these stereotypes among children and adolescents from first to 12th grade and their potential negative consequences for girls’ sub- sequent participation in these fields. Studies 1 and 2 (n = 2,277; one preregistered) reveal that children as young as age six (first grade) and adolescents across multiple racial/ethnic and gender intersec- tions (Black, Latinx, Asian, and White girls and boys) endorse ster- eotypes that girls are less interested than boys in

Female students participate in STEM activities at a low rate compared to males. Educational researchers have called for studies which examine the factors that influence STEM participation. The purpose of this study is to examine how a unique learning structure built on the principals of constructive learning environments might impact students’ sense of belonging and encourage them to participate in more STEM activities. For this qualitative study, interviews were conducted with 12 mentor and 17 student participants. Preliminary findings indicated that a constructive learning environment