Resources included in these libraries were submitted by ITEST projects or STELAR and are relevant to the work of the NSF ITEST Program. PDFs and/or URLs to the original resource are included in 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. Permission for use must be requested through the publisher or author listed in each entry.
Increasing Student Interest and Attitudes in STEM: Professional Development and Activities to Engage and Inspire Learners
PublicationsThe iQUEST (investigations for Quality Understanding and Engagement for Students and Teachers) project is designed to promote student interest and attitudes toward careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The project targets seventh- and eighth-grade science classrooms that serve high percentages of Hispanic students. The project design, student summer camp program, and professional development model have led to successful increases in student performance. The iQUEST student summer camp findings show that underserved populations of both female and male students
Prime the Pipeline Project (P3): Putting Knowledge to Work
PublicationsWith funding from NSF, the Prime the Pipeline Project (P3) is responding to the need to strengthen the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pipeline from high school to college by developing and evaluating the scientific village strategy and the culture it creates. The scientific village, a community of high school students, teachers as learners, undergraduate students as mentors, and university scientists as leaders, collaborate to solve challenging long-term problems/projects that develop villagers’ expertise with STEM concepts/skills and give them a taste of the work of
Editorial: Innovative Professional Development for STEM Workforce Development
PublicationsIntroduction to a special issue of CITE wherein three ITEST projects are highlighted. The three projects in this issue share characteristics: programs that interweave formal and informal learning environments, incorporation of practices that allow participants to engage with STEM content in a hands-on manner, and a dedication to improving research on project impacts. This editorial describes these characteristics in depth.This article is part of a special issue of Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education (CITE).
STEM
PublicationsA 2011 report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce shows that 65 percent of Bachelor’s degrees in STEM (science, engineering, technology and mathematics) occupations earn more than Master’s degrees in non-STEM occupations. Similarly, 47 percent of Bachelor’s degrees in STEM occupations earn more than PhDs in non-STEM occupations. Furthermore, people with only STEM certificates can earn more than people with non-STEM degrees; for instance certificate holders in engineering earn more than Associate’s degree-holders in business and more than Bachelor’s degree
Building a Framework for Researching Teacher Change in ITEST Projects
PublicationsThis review looks to literature on teacher change in science and technology education. We address the following question: How do science and technology teacher professional development programs define and describe changes in teaching beliefs and practices that lead to the effective implementation of sophisticated science and technology into formal classroom teaching?
ITEST Lessons Learned: Reflecting on Informal Teaching Methodologies and Innovative Uses of Technology
PublicationsThe ITEST LRC asked four ITEST projects a series of questions about technology use and teaching methods in summer program activities in order to capture insights that can inform program design and practices in other ITEST projects and beyond.
K–12 Computational Learning
PublicationsEnhancing student learning and understanding by combining theories of learning with the computer’s unique attributes.In “Computational Thinking,” Jeannette Wing struck a chord that has resonated strongly (generating positive as well as negative responses) with many computer scientists and non-computer scientists. In this article, Cooper et al. reframe the way computational thinking is conceptualized and present a new model for computational learning in K-12 education.
Analysis of Middle and High School Student Learning of Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Concepts Through a Lego Underwater Robotics Design Challenge
PublicationsThe Build IT project is a university-school collaboration to increase precollege student interest and achievement in engineering, science, mathematics, and information technology through a novel underwater robotics project that utilizes LEGO Mindstorms kits, the NXT programmable brick, and related equipment. The project is being implemented in 36 socio-economically and academically diverse schools for students in Grades 7-12. Through a series of increasingly complex challenges, Build IT exposes students to science, mathematics, and engineering concepts such as buoyancy, Newton’s Laws, momentum
ITEST Project Overviews: WGBH Videos
PublicationsThe WGBH Educational Foundation and the Education Development Center, Inc. collaborated to create a series of six individual ITEST project profile videos and multiple video clips submitted by projects and edited by WGBH. The full collection is hosted on the STELAR Vimeo Channel and includes:Bioinformatics: the Rutgers Initiative in Teacher Enhancement (BRITE)Build IT: Girls Building Information Technology Fluency Through DesignCatfish Environmental Monitoring (CEMO)Community for Rural Education, Stewardship and Technology (CREST)Green Energy Technologies in the City (GET City)Urban Ecology
EcoScience Works: Teacher Professional Development Through a Collaborative Curriculum Project – an Example of TPACK in Maine
PublicationsEcoScienceWorks (ESW) is an ecology curriculum that includes targeted simulations and a code block programming challenge developed through an NSF-ITEST grant.