On Tuesday, March 28, STELAR explored the use of digital badges in two ITEST projects. Like traditional merit badges, digital badges are earned by learning new skills, but unlike their embroidered counterparts, each digital badge contains an electronic record of the specific competencies that have
The STELAR ITEST PI & Evaluator Summit is an annual opportunity for ITEST Principal Investigators (PIs) and evaluators to come together and share successes, challenges, and lessons learned from the ITEST program.
A new survey of American teenagers from the Amgen Foundation and Change the Equation offers real cause for optimism about the future of high school science and biology education in the United States. Teens generally like science—and biology in particular—and they grasp the importance of the field to people’s lives. They know good biology teaching when they see it, and they would like the opportunity to do more engaging, hands-on science in school.
This report presents important takeaways from a one-day National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported Forum, “ Next Generation STEM Learning for All,” organized by Education Development Center (EDC) and SRI International through the STEM Learning and Research Center (STELAR) at EDC, the Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education (CADRE) at EDC, and the Center for Innovative Research in Cyberlearning (CIRCL), working in close collaboration with NSF and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The Forum engaged prominent scientists in STEM learning research and school
Attention all STEM teachers — are you looking for ways to incorporate music and sound into your classroom? Check out these hands-on DIY ideas from Youth Radio’s Brains and Beakers science speaker series. Explore creative ways to experience sound — from digital visualization to science rap battles to creating your own instruments out of scrap parts.
The d.loft STEM curriculum units provide an integrated approach to building STEM knowledge and skills while engaging students in both identifying and solving real-world problems using a design thinking approach.
Design Time: Learning That Is Transformative is a short documentary film that follows a group of students from Salt Lake City's West Side as they learn about design thinking. The film demonstrates the power of learning through design thinking, as the students take on the challenge of designing a community center for returning military veterans.
These files contain background information relevant to the genome annotation project as well as detailed instructions for each module (updated March 2, 2015).
The CryptoClub Cipher Handbook is recommended for use in informal learning environments such as afterschool and enrichment programs. It teaches cryptography as an application of mathematics topics from the middle-grade curriculum. It covers six ciphers: Caesar, additive, keyword, multiplicative, affine, and Vigenère. The mathematics involved includes negative numbers, decimals, percents, prime numbers, common factors, inverses, methods for solving linear equations, division with remainder, and pattern recognition. Overarching themes throughout the book are problem solving and reasoning. The
Designed to be used with 10-14 year olds, the Measuring Activation (MA) instrument was written for use with 10-14 year-old respondents to assess an individual across each of the four dimensions of science learning activation (Fascination, Values, Competency Belief, Scientific Sensemaking). The construct is conceived as semi-malleable and therefore is amenable to intervention. However, we expect that changes in scale scores to only be present for interventions that are at least several days or months in duration, not single hour-long experiences. The survey can be used in longitudinal contexts