NSF Awards: 1850302
Morehouse College's iSTEM-Xe program engages minority students (6th, 7th and 8th graders) in a long-term (3-year) STEM technology program that includes a four-week Summer Program, Hands-on Field Experience and a Saturday Academy during the academic year.
iSTEM-Xe utilizes a project-based framework designed to provide students with challenging technological learning experiences. The project exposes students to innovation and creativity in STEM disciplines within the context of real-world problem-solving scenarios. These scenarios utilize entrepreneurial concepts in an effort to promote academic success in middle and high school, as well as prepare our students for post-secondary education.
Program objectives are:
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Increase student awareness and knowledge of educational opportunities and STEM careers
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Increase student knowledge, skills and practices represented in STEM and/or STEM workforce
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Increase broadening participation of underrepresented populations in STEM
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
Welcome to iSTEM-Xe at Morehouse College!
iSTEM-Xe has begun the second year of a three year commitment by students and the program to engage students in a long-term STEM program. Students began participating during the Summer Academy 2019 and have continued through the Saturday Academy during the 2019-2020 academic year. Students have been introduced to the innovation process underlying STEM based problem solving in a real-world project-based context by having the students work on real world problems. The iSTEM-Xe innovation course included working on finding solutions that are economically possible and therefore viable for business.
Like most of the country, changes were made to shift the program to a virtual opportunity for students for the upcoming Summer Academy 2020. The collaborative team of secondary educators and college faculty meet regularly and have been collaborating as a team for a number of years having previously collaborated on a prior ITEST project and a prior DR-K project. This long standing partnership made this shift possible so that the program could continue during these challenging times. The parents were also engaged early to obtain their feedback for how this shift would occur.
We would like to hear from others about the following:
Marion Tate
Hello Melssa,
I appreciate that the program allows students to remain engaged in science throughout the school year. Similarly, working on authentic problems is what is missing in many schools today. Hence, to have student learning and problem-solving in a real-world context is sure to promote and will ultimately sustain many students’ interest in science. I also really love that the project gets parents involved early in the program. This parental involvement provides a built-in support system that will also encourage students’ sustained interest in science.
Andrea Gingras
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
Dear Marion,
Thanks for your interest in our program. The program will be using virtual field trips for the first time this year and I see that your program has developed a virtual field trip in response to covid 19. In what ways will this experience be modified in response to the pandemic?
Rebecca Vieyra
Project Manager
Dear Melissa and iSTEM-Xe Team,
Congratulations on such an inspiring submission! I am deeply impressed by the dimensions of this project (from the STEM-anchored activities, to the focus on communication and leadership) and the multiple perspectives that were presented (students, parents, instructors, peer mentors).
The framework of this program exudes a "unified spirit." I am curious to know a bit more, however, about the STEM projects. What are some examples of the projects that students work on, and how are they made relevant to the students who are participating? (Or, does the motivation come from the relationships that are built among students and their supporters?) If there is any "secret sauce" to this program, I'd like to know!
I am also curious to know more about students who were selected to be in the program. Did these students and their families previously identify an interest in STEM? I would like to know if you have been able to observe any change in student (or parent) affect with regard to STEM and post-secondary education, and if you have been able to observe it over a period of time, especially as I see from the description that you have an academic year version of this program.
Lastly, seeing as you are now looking to make modifications based on Covid-19, I wonder what elements you feel you will be able to retain, and what you are concerned might be lost through virtual activities only. Your findings on this matter will become critical -- I think -- for the rest of us to know!
Sincerely,
Rebecca
Janelle Johnson
Shannon Jolly
Hi Rebecca,
thanks for your comment. I have answered your questions below:
1. Examples or projects:
We make the projects relevant to the students by allowing them to identify real world problems that they may face in school or the community at large. Recently, the students worked in the Morehouse 3D printing lab to design prototypes for devices to aid students with vision or hearing impairments to enhance their learning. The students used the design process to identify a problem, research current initiatives and products to address the problem, and came up with their own innovative design to addressing those with these impairments. Another example of a specific project when the topic was “using sound to build communities” students used arduino kits to create levitation devices in science, created sound proof boxes (similar to studios) in math, and explored Black history as students learned how songs, dance, poems and speeches were used to tell a story in English.
2. In regards to recruitment, we took a gorilla marketing approach; we went to local elementary, middle and high schools to pass out fliers, sent emails to schools throughout the Atlanta metro area, and gave presentations at local PTA meetings, etc. Once parents or students expressed interest, they were directed to apply for the program. Everyone who applied was invited for an Assessment Day where the students took a serious of interactive tests in math, science and innovation.
the students were then selected based off of their test scores and application. We created a scale to accept students who are top students (GPA), interested in STEM and would truly benefit, students who are have an average GPA and have some interest in STEM, and students who have may have interest but have not been exposed to STEM. Throughout the program we have a Parent University where are parents attend workshops and are given resources to better support STEM students. Parents are excited and interested in discovering ways to support their children, a lot of times they just don’t have the resources. In addition, in innovation the students do reflections where they identify colleges and/or careers they hope to pursue. From there we help them make action plans to get them excited about pursuing STEM.
3. In regards to COVID-19 we made some pivots in the curriculum, as our students are a younger group (currently rising 7th-9th graders). We are offering a virtual program in which the students will have live sessions w/ instructors, discussion boards, and collaborate with each other on assignments. The students will still be able to experience interactive learning, as we will be disseminating laptops along with kits for them to follow along with their instructors when building different devices, etc. In addition, we are incorporating enrichment piece through virtual field trips, etc.
Michael Haney
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
Hi Rebecca,
Thanks for exploring our video and asking about our project.
In terms of your question about change in student affect with regard to STEM and post-secondary education....Students reported high levels of STEM self-efficacy in Science, Math, Technology, Problem Solving and Innovation as well as high confidence in working and leading a research team. Students also demonstrated high interest in skill sets important to STEM careers as well as in entering STEM careers.
Assessments are ongoing with students taking part in evaluation activities at the end of each semester and each summer so we will be looking at changes over time.
Before making changes to the program for this summer, we conducted focus groups and surveys with the parents and engaged the faculty team in the decision making process. It may be of interest that it will be critical for programs to carefully construct questions to ask about participation options since we received vastly different responses depending on the wording of the questions. For example, when asked if the children had a computer, 100% of the parents said yes. However, when asked what they needed for their child to be able to fully participate, 50% said they needed a computer with notations such as the one they have does not work properly or that it was on loan for the school and they will not have it in the summer.
Rebecca Vieyra
Project Manager
Dear Shannon and Melissa,
Thank you for such helpful responses!
Shannon -- I'm impressed that your project is able to be responsive and flexible to allow students do identify the projects to work on. Can you tell me a bit more about how that process works? I would imagine that students needs some scaffolding to identify "workable" problems, and that the project needs to invest a significant amount of time to make problems accessible for the target age group. Additionally, is the whole day of each experience dedicated to the same problem, or do you have supporting activities? (I'd be super impressed either way, but I legitimately am curious as to how you can pull together such a robust program that meets students' self-identified interests).
Melissa and Shannon -- It seems to me that a key component of your project is about making the effort to push for equity through access. It sounds like you didn't cut any corners with respect to getting the word out through a serious amount of elbow grease, and that you had a very principled recruitment approach. It also seems that you spend a lot of time evaluating your own recruitment process. Seeing as how the application process is pretty substantial (having families show up to have their children take a skills test can be rather daunting), did you find any obstacles to families' motivation or ability to bring their children to get tested or remain involved in the program?
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
Dear Rebecca,
I think you may be interested in the reply to Meltem below where I discuss program retention which is quite high. 32 of the original 37 students who began in Summer 2019 were retained through Spring 2020 for an 86.5% overall 1 year retention rate. In that reply I do address the fact that there is a substantial commitment by the families to participate over a 3 year period and that it is likely that the initial upfront commitment to participate in the Assessment Day and application process contributes to program retention. While it is possible that this is an initial hurdle for some students/families, 127 students participated in the Assessment Day out 139 applicants.
Shannon or one of the PI's can address the rest of your question more fully, but I just wanted to point out that the program includes short-term and long-terms projects and that the students participate in a variety of subjects including science, math, innovation, and English to engage with PBL learning opportunities.
Robert Reardon
So inspiring to hear phrases highlighting leadership and community as outcomes of your project--in addition to seeing all the "cool projects" with which the students were engaged. This seems to be hands-on learning at its best! I'm curious about how you formally measured the outcomes of this wonderful work?
Janelle Johnson
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
Dear Robert,
Over the course of the program, students participate in surveys and program information is obtained from focus groups with parents and focus groups with program faculty. Process evaluation was conducted by documentation of student participation and accomplishments, student surveys, and by information from program faculty and staff. Qualitative components of the program have been assessed by surveys, and focus groups. Quantitative components of the program have been measured by quantitative goals, objectives and benchmarks.
The project has 3 goals and a number of measurable objectives that we evaluate over the course of the project.
Goal 1: Increase student awareness and knowledge of educational opportunities and STEM careers.
Objective a. Increase student engagement in STEM educational opportunities
Objective b. Motivate students to pursue the appropriate education pathways for STEM and cognate careers
Objective c. Motivate and build interest of students to pursue STEM and/or STEM cognate career trajectories
Objective d. Introduce students to the innovation process underlying STEM based problem solving in a real-world project-based context
Goal 2: Increase student knowledge, skills and practices represented in STEM and/or STEM cognate workforce.
Objective a. Provide technology-rich experiences that develop discipline-based knowledge and practices
Objective b. Provide opportunities to develop critical thinking and communication skills needed for entering STEM workforce sectors
Objective c. Increase student STEM self-efficacy
Objective d. Increase student exposure to innovation and creativity in STEM disciplines
Objective e. Engage parents and role models in student learning
Goal 3: Increase broadening participation of underrepresented populations in STEM
Objective a. Provide early engagement of underrepresented minority students in STEM programs opportunities
Objective b. Motivate underrepresented minority students to pursue STEM careers
Please also see the reply I just entered to Rebecca's question above for an example of some of our outcomes.
Rebecca Vieyra
Project Manager
Melissa,
This is substantial. How big is your team? I think your team's success in this project must start with a good team foundation...so now I'm curious about the back-end of this project!
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
The PI on the project, Dr. Trawick, has extensive experience bringing together collaborative teams. iSTEM-Xe faculty members include Morehouse faculty from STEM departments, the Center for Teacher Preparation and Leadership, along with an Academic Advisor Specialist and 6-12th grade STEM faculty. Several members of this team have collaborated together for many years and first came together under a DR-K12 project and then worked together on a similar ITEST project prior to this current ITEST project. In addition to the faculty, the program has a full time Program Coordinator, Shannon Jolly. A number of other individuals are brought into the project for specific components as needed.
Christopher Jett
Hello Project Team,
I absolutely love this. Superb project and work!!!
Chris
Shannon Jolly
Shannon Jolly
Hi Chris,
thanks for your response!
Jamie Mikeska
What great work your team is doing to inspire youth in this area! In New York City, they have a long-standing program for middle school students, their teachers, and families called Urban Advantage that is focused on engaging youth in similar ways. You might want to check it out at: https://www.urbanadvantagenyc.org/. It might be useful to reach out to them to see how they are responding in the current pandemic environment to continue their outreach and student learning opportunities.
Shannon Jolly
Shannon Jolly
Hi Jamie!
Thanks for your comment. We’ll be sure to check out Urban Advantage!
Shannon Jolly
Michael Haney
Administrator, Educator
Watching the video I can feel the enthusiasm of the staff and students in this project. The students are immersed in innovation and problem solving and I can easily imagine this will change everyone of their lives in significant ways. I'm left wishing all students could have opportunities like this but very much like that Morehouse College is targeting this minority community with such a strong program.
The questions asked by the other responders on how participants are identified and their progress tracked during the project are also of interest to me. Of course, it would be excellent if you could follow up with participants after a few years to see what the long term impacts have been on their learning paths. Do you have plans to follow them through high school? Is there any opportunity to compare their progress to similar students?
Andrea Gingras
Shannon Jolly
Hi Michael,
Thanks for your comment. We indeed do have plans of following-up with our cohort once they’ve moved on from the program to track progress and identify ways to enhance the program in the future.
Andrea Gingras
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
Dear Michael,
This is one of the challenges with the funding cycles for typical NSF grants. As with most NSF funded projects, the granting period does not provide for follow up opportunities as the funding will end before they complete high school. However, these students enter in 6-8 grade and will participate for 3 years so we will follow them through 8-10th grade. The project team had prior funding with a similar program and we are currently exploring funding opportunities to support the development of a tracking and support system for these students that can serve as a model to potentially utilize for this program as well when the time comes.
Michael Haney
Administrator, Educator
Given the potential impact of your project, I would think it would be worth applying for a small supplement that extends the project by 2 years to collect follow up data and report. Wouldn't the be a great project for a graduate students? The results could provide a lot of insight into how well it worked and maybe even which aspects contributed to the long term success.
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
Thanks Michael,
We are exploring a number of potential options. We do feel that such follow up will provide important outcome data as well as contribute to understanding the mechanism of success.
Andrea Gingras
What a great project! Beyond following/tracking the students, does your project incorporate those students who may have "aged out" as mentors or assistants?
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
Dear Andrea,
Thanks for your interest and question.
The students will not age out of the program as the program is 3 years long and the students participate for 3 years in the program. The students enter the program when they are in 6th, 7th, or 8th grade and stay in it for 3 years so that they are in 8th, 9th, or 10th grade the last year of the program.
However, the project team has invited back some participants from a prior ITEST project to serve as neer-peer mentors/assistants for this current ITEST program during the summer sessions. In addition, for that prior ITEST project, prior participants from a DRK-12 project and an LSAMP project served as need peer mentors/assistants.
Meltem Alemdar
great project and video. I really enjoyed hearing parents' perspective. I was wondering how did you recruit the students to the program? Did you have students dropping out of the program?
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
Dear Meltem,
Thanks for your interest in our project.
In terms of recruitment, we went to local elementary, middle and high schools to pass out fliers, sent emails to schools throughout the Atlanta metro area, and gave presentations at local PTA meetings, etc...please look above to Shannon's answer to Rebecca's question for a fuller description of the recruitment process.
The retention rate for the program is quite good. 32 of the original 37 students who began in Summer 2019 were retained through Spring 2020 for an 86.5% overall 1 year retention rate. For a similar previous project, students began the program during the academic year rather than during the summer and there was a 100% year 1 retention rate in that program. This slight shift in retention may be due to a more serious upfront commitment from families entering a program during the academic year as opposed to entering during a summer program. One of the components of entering students into the program that likely contributes to the high retention rate is the Assessment Day that is part of the selection process. Parents and students must attend a series of sessions on a Saturday where students take a placement tests and participate in interactive activities while their parents learn about program opportunities and expectations. Another component of the program that may contribute to retention is the parental involvement. For example, parents receive professional development opportunities to learn about technology as well as educational sessions about college preparedness. Parents are also engaged through focus groups as part of the evaluation process.
Michael I. Swart
Great work. A wonderful way to provide STEM experiences, learning for students and teachers. One factor in our work (embodied geometry learning) that we are finding is crucial are spatial skills. More and more research is emerging on the importance of spatial reasoning in mathematics, science and engineering. Am thinking that any of the recently (in the last 15 years) developed spatial skills batteries (already validated and reliable) that might be a great pre-post or covariate addition to this wonderful hands-on, contextualized approach.
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
Thanks Michael,
We do ask about their interest in a number of STEM skills but do not currently test changes in spatial skills. Do you have any specific suggestions for an instrument?
Michael I. Swart
Yes. We looked over a number of batteries -there is a resource out of Northwestern, SILC, here:https://www.silc.northwestern.edu/resources_2/
Because spatial skills differentiate to visualization, rotation, orientation, spatial reasoning, etc., there are a number of different batteries. That being said, given your age group, there is a multi-skill battery called the Spatial Reasoning Instrument (SRI).
Also, a colleague of mine looks specifically at spatial skills and you can find an AERA paper here: https://uwmadison.box.com/s/hjhdz35mdtm75dv1q8h...
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
Thanks again Michael,
I appreciate the resources!
Jonathan Margolin
Principal Researcher
Dear Shannon and Melissa,
What an inspiring video! The enthusiasm of students, parents, and teachers for iSTEM-Xe is evident. Given that you are having teachers from four subject areas work together, what challenges did you (and they) encounter? On a related note, I can imagine that this project-based learning approach was something new for many teachers. If so--do you have any strategies for supporting this new instructional approach?
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
Dear Jonathan,
Thank you for your interest in our project. I would say that one of the biggest challenges in integrating across the subject areas is time....how much time is allocated to each area, and how are these time blocks arranged? This is a constantly negotiated issue within the team and is implemented differently at different times such that sometimes two subjects are combined and co-taught, other times one area may have a longer block than another, etc. For example, science and innovation may need longer blocks for their projects. The team meets multiple times per month and has a long standing working relationship and so is able to make shifts in these areas as needed.
Several of the pre-college teachers have used some PBL in their classrooms. A professional development PBL workshop was conducted at the beginning of the project that also included brainstorming and consensus building on topics for the PBL topics. During the academic year, team meetings are held early in the week on each week that there is a Saturday session to provide professional development and support to the faculty for the upcoming session. In addition, there are several team meetings held prior to the summer session for professional development and support. Training has been ongoing for the blackboard technology that will be used for the virtual summer session.
Jonathan Margolin
Principal Researcher
Melissa, it is great to hear more about the program! I would love to hear more updates as your program continues.
Marcia Linn
What topics do you find are most likely to challenge students?
Marcia
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
Hi Marcia,
Thanks for your question. Students are challenged to work above grade level in all aspects of the program. Parents report that their children have come to appreciate this as they experience greater success in their school classroom experience. Students report high levels of STEM self-efficacy in Science (4.0), Math (3.9), Technology (3.9), Problem Solving (4.1) and Innovation (4.5) on a 5 point scale. That being said, mathematics is probably the subject that students report as being the most challenging.
Susan Warshaw
I liked the emphasis on integration. This is important as we seek solutions to highly complex engineering problems.. I absolutely loved seeing the students in action. Well done!
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
Thanks Susan!
Dermot Donnelly-Hermosillo
Love the video. Thank you for sharing. Great to see so many different perspectives across the project.
The video alludes to students running into some challenges and becoming more persistent in figuring things out. Could you speak a bit more to some of the strategies used to encourage persistence especially for problem-solving?
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
Dear Dermot,
Thanks for your interest in our project. Students were provided opportunities to develop critical thinking and communication skills needed for entering STEM workforce sectors as they worked on their projects. Students were able to engage in critical thinking such as brainstorm on projects, gather pertinent background information, draft hypothesis, discuss pros and cons of potential solutions, review and include new background information, finalize hypothesis, and conclude on best potential solutions as they worked on their projects. Students were also engaged within the Maker space and through the iSTEM-Xe innovation component. The maker space culture at Morehouse college “seeks to engage students, faculty, and community in STEM-related, do-it-yourself activities that foster creativity, ingenuity, and leadership development. Our goal is to provide a physical and intellectual infrastructure that allows students to express their creativity, solve problems and explore opportunities through making.” The iSTEM-Xe innovation component is student centered and emphasizes science and math relevance, a concrete to abstract approach, problem-solving, and innovation skill development.
Iris Wagstaff
Great video! Exposure to real-world problem solving via project based learning is critical in developing K-12 STEM identify and STEM career intent, especially for underrepresented minorities.
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce and ITEST project
Thanks Iris!