Teachers and students pair up to widen the STEM pipeline

News

The National Science Foundation’s Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program recently awarded more than $1 million to the three-year project, which will combine robotics and entrepreneurial education to improve teacher practices and student outcomes. Each summer, two teachers and four students from eight high schools across New York City will learn, build, and evaluate robots and related technology at NYU Tandon

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Teacher Transformations in Developing Computational Thinking: Gaming and Robotics Use in After-School Settings

Publication

The challenges of addressing increasing calls for the inclusion of computational thinking skills in K-12 education in the midst of crowded school curricula can be mitigated, in part, by promoting STEM learning in after-school settings. The Visualization Basics: Using Gaming to Improve Computational Thinking project provided opportunities for middle school students to participate in after-school clubs focused on game development and LEGO robotics in an effort to increase computational thinking skills. Club leaders and teachers, however, first needed to develop proficiency with the computational

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Teaching Computational Thinking Patterns in Rural Communities

Publication

In this chapter you will learn how a community college in rural Wyoming is implementing professional development resources in Computer Science and computational thinking skills for middle and high school teachers in their communities. The objective of the community college was to build relationships with schools to teach Computer Science concepts and computational thinking skills in the classroom. In this day and age, many people young and old are spending time on playing games or simulations. Why not teach Computer Science concepts and computational thinking skills through gaming and

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Preparing Teachers to Engage Rural Students in Computational Thinking through Robotics, Game Design, and Culturally Responsive Teaching

Publication

This article examines teacher preparation and teacher change in engineering and computer science education. We examined culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy (CRTSE), culturally responsive teaching outcome expectancy (CRTOE) beliefs, and attitudes toward computational thinking (CT) as teachers participated in one of three treatment groups: robotics only, game design only, or blended robotics/game design. Descriptive data revealed that CRTSE gain scores were higher in the robotics only and blended contexts than in the game design only context. However, CRTOE beliefs were consistent

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Relationship of Middle School Student STEM Interest to Career Intent

Publication

Understanding middle school students’ perceptions regarding STEM dispositions, and the role attitudes play in establishing STEM career aspirations, is imperative to preparing the STEM workforce of the future. Data were gathered from more than 800 middle school students participating in a hands-on, real world application curriculum to examine the relationship of the students’ interest in STEM and their intentions to pursue a career in a STEM field. Among the middle school students who completed surveys for the MSOSW project, 46.6% expressed a desire to pursue a career in STEM at the time of the

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Changes in Teacher Dispositions Among Participants in Hands-on Teaching of a STEM Curriculum

Publication

Going Green! Middle Schoolers Out to Save the World (MSOSW) focuses on students using energy monitoring equipment to assess the amount of standby power consumed by their home entertainment devices and appliances when not performing any useful functions. This program focuses on improving the STEM pipeline by preparing both teachers and students in engaging activities aimed at creating and increasing interest in STEM careers for students. Teachers who participated in this hands-on, real world curriculum project, that included professional development, project tools and resources, gained in their

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Contrasts in Climate Change Attitudes and STEM Dispositions Among Children Versus Adults Attending a Science and Technology Exposition

Publication

Children and adults attending a three-day Science and Technology Exposition in Washington D.C., during April 2016 completed Climate Change Attitude Surveys and STEM Semantic Differential Surveys while visiting a booth featuring hands on demonstrations of testing various houshold appliances for consumption of standby power. Demos were conducted by middle school teachers from three states in the USA as part of a four-year Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) project, funded by NSF. Findings were that adults overall were more positive than children but significantly

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Festival was just the start

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Debuted in 2012, the Arizona SciTech Festival celebrated its sixth season with more than 800 organizations planning to stage nearly 1,500 events for an audience total exceeding 400,000.

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Honeywell hosts 175 students to advance STEM in Arizona

News

Honeywell hosted the second-annual Arizona Science Officer technology day and statewide cabinet meeting. The event is designed to inspire interest in technology careers and allow students to work on collective action projects that impact their respective schools and communities. The students were all elected by their peers to serve as chief science officers.

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Conversations: Startups need our students to buck up

News

In December, software companies WebPT and Galvanize are set to bring more than 800 new employees to the area as they renovate a 120,000 square foot building on Grant Street. How can the Arizona Commerce Authority continue to attract even more companies and convince them that the Phoenix region is the center of STEM and innovation? How will they convince startups that we’ve got the talent to build their workforce? Arizona SciTech is collaborating

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