ITEST Resources

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Welcome to the ITEST Resource Library

The curricula, instruments, and publications included in this library were submitted by ITEST projects and are relevant to the work of the NSF ITEST Program. Use the filters to the right to find relevant materials. A PDF and/or URL to the original resource are included within the resource description whenever possible. In some cases, full text publications are located behind publishers’ paywalls and a fee or membership to the third party site may be required for access. 

Please note: permission for the use of instruments must be requested through the publisher or author listed in each entry, and cannot be granted by STELAR.

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31 - 40 of 876

Survey about Computational Thinking

Curricular Materials
Attitude towards CT (first section), Self-efficacy (second section), Learning experiences (third section). Learning experiences were asked only after the intervention
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Drones in Alaska Elementary Curriculum

Curricular Materials
This collection of three teacher's manuals, five videos, and one career exploration guide were created with and for Alaska Native communities as part of the Drone Research and Opportunities for Native Elementary Students project, funded by NSF I-TEST Grant Nos. 1850561 (Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks) and 1850556 (Univ. of Alaska Anchorage). The Drones in Alaska base curriculum has three versions, one with lexicon in Sugs'tun, one with lexicon in Lower Tanana Athabascan, and one with lexicon in Lower Koyukon Athabascan. The Teacher's manual for the Drones in Alaska base curriculum is applicable to
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STEM Career Connections Resources

Curricular Materials
During the STEM Career Connections project we developed educational materials to support implementation of the STEMCC model within both formal and informal education settings, included here as the Resource Pack. The technology curricula and career connections activities define what youth were actually doing throughout the STEMCC project, while the community partnerships, detailed in the STEM Partnership Toolkit, provided the backbone to shape youth experiences. The research team also authored several publications and newsletters that provide more insight into the project work. We have included
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The Internet Doesn't Exist in the Sky: Literacy, AI, and the Digital Middle Passage

Publications
This article utilizes speculative and visual storytelling alongside interdisciplinary research on artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithmic oppression to engage in a thought experiment on how literacy studies might refuse the oppressionist logics currently undermining the possibilities of AI in literacy education. As technological advancements in education will only continue to increase and as society is yet to ascertain the parameters of an ethical AI system, it is paramount to analyze the past and present and contemplate potential futures, especially those that do not result in violence
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Student Engagement in an Online Engineering Afterschool Program During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Publications
The COVID-19 pandemic forced much of schooling online and limited students’ access to informal learning opportunities such as afterschool programs. The purpose of this study was to investigate how fourth- and fifth-grade students engaged in an online engineering program and what factors influenced their engagement. We drew on a four-dimensional model of student engagement to describe how students engaged in the afterschool engineering program and to identify the factors that enhanced or inhibited engagement. Using a case study design, we drew on interviews with six program mentors and ten
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Leveraging local resources and contexts for inclusive computer science classrooms: Reflections from experienced high school teachers implementing electronic textiles

Publications
Background and context Promoting open-ended projects presents new opportunities and challenges for inclusive teaching in CS classrooms. While efforts have been made to develop inclusive curricula, little research has focused on ways teachers apply curricula in their classrooms to promote inclusion. Objective To understand the challenges faced in facilitating an open-ended unit and the pedagogical strategies enacted to address those challenges, we analyze the self-reported teaching practices that experienced teachers developed in their implementation of a constructionist electronic textiles
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Acknowledging Bias and Pursuing Protections to Support Anti-Racist Developmental Science: Critical Contributions of Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory

Publications
American racism is deeply engrained in the nation’s ecology including its chronosystem and contributes to the nation’s unavoidably shared vulnerability. Interrogating an accurate portrayal of the nation’s history is informative for securing anti-racist research. This special issue commentary discusses the role of Spencer’s phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory (PVEST) as a means of providing an epistemic framing for disentangling and directly addressing the problem of structural racism in the conduct of science. Additionally it demonstrates the efficacy of PVEST and offers
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A Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST): A self-organization perspective in context

Publications
A framework that emphasizes and integrates individuals' intersubjective experiences with Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory (PVEST) is introduced and compared with self-organizational perspectives. Similarities, differences and advantages of each framework are described. In a demonstration of PVEST's utility, a subset of data from the 3rd year of a longitudinal study (14- to 16-year-old middle adolescent African-Americans) is used for examining an achievement variable: negative learning attitude. Explored separately by gender, a regression model that contained risk, stress, and a
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STEM, STEAM, Make, Dream: Reimagining the Culture of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

Publications
STEM, STEAM, Make, Dream explores the ways that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics can transform all young people’s lives through learning. This includes reimagining our collective relationship to STEM by presenting it as more accepting and accessible than previously acknowledged. Beginning with the ways that STEM has been used to marginalize many children, the book examines the need for the arts – including culture – to serve as an anchor for instruction. It also describes the need for “making” (hands-on creation and tinkering) in establishing relevance in learning. Then
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Transdisciplinarity in STEM Education: A Critical Review

Publications
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education garnered significant attention in recent years and has emerged as a key field of research globally. The goal of this article is to offer a critical review of how STEM education and its transdisciplinarity were defined and/or positioned in empirical studies published during the early formulation of the field. In particular, we sought to identify how these studies conceptualize learners and learning and portray the underlying assumptions in light of the macrosystemic discourses that often serve as ideological forces in shaping
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