Innovative Collaboration equals success for Award-winning STEM Starters+ Program

Ajani Oyindamola — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 19:30:31 +0000

Researchers at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the Museum of Science, Boston, are being recognized for the success of their collaborative project to bring engineering curricula coupled with biographies of famous scientists and engineers to elementary school students in Arkansas. STEM Starters+ is a five-year, $2.5 million research and demonstration funded by the U.S. Department of Education. It began with researchers introducing talent spotting, engineering curricula, and engaging biographies into four Arkansas school districts with high rates of culturally diverse and low-income children. Those school districts included Cabot, El Dorado, Little Rock, and the Pulaski County Special School District. Dr. Ann Robinson, director of the Jodie Mahony Center for Gifted Education at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, led the project as principal investigator in collaboration with Dr. Christine Cunningham of the Museum of Science, Boston. She was joined by project director Kristy Kidd of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock and external evaluator Dr. Jill Adelson of the Talent Identification Program (TIP) at Duke University. Studies conducted by the collaborators have shown that students who participate in the STEM Starters+ not only develop a greater understanding of engineering, but they also learn more science and are more highly engaged in learning. Teachers learn to spot academic talents in increased numbers of primary-grade students. “In K-12 education, we often measure success by achievement, but we should also measure our effectiveness by how engaged children are,” Robinson said. “This project has engaged children and teachers profoundly. That is how you know you have hit the sweet spot, when learning is fun, collaborative, and creative and improves science scores and engineering knowledge. It is wonderful when classroom experiences increase engagement for teachers and students.” Robinson, Adelson, and Cunningham recently learned they received the Senior Investigator Research Paper Award from the Mensa Foundation. The foundation’s Awards for Excellence in Research are given internationally for outstanding research on intelligence, intellectual giftedness, and related fields. In April, the researchers received the Michael Pyryt Collaboration Award at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association in New York City for their paper, “A Talent for Tinkering: Developing Talents in Children From Low-Income Households Through Engineering Curriculum.” The award recognizes the work of a scholar who researches giftedness and an influential collaborator who has no previously published scholarship associated with giftedness, creativity, or talent.

Dr. Christine Cunningham

Additionally, the Jodie Mahony Center and the STEM Starters+ program were featured in a produced last year by the National Science Teachers Association. The Cabot School District, one of four districts in Arkansas to collaborate with ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, has seen tremendous success with the STEM Starters+ program. First-grade and gifted and talented education specialists at Westside Elementary, Southside Elementary, Magness Creek Elementary, and Cabot Middle School South were trained to implement the STEM Starters+ Project. “The level of engagement from our students while using these units has been remarkable,” said Aaron Randolph, director of Gifted and Advanced Placement Programs at Cabot Public Schools. “Due to the success we’ve had implementing this curricula into our five targeted schools, our G/T program will be implementing one EiE unit per grade level for the 2018-19 school year.” STEM Starters+ teachers receive a biography of an engineer, inventor, or scientist whose ideas are linked to the EiE units. Additionally, teachers receive a curriculum guide, “Blueprints for Biography,” which includes complex discussion questions, enrichment activities, and a science investigation or engineering design challenge. “If young children can ‘see’ the scientist or engineer, they respond so much better to the research behind the life,” Robinson said. “We took interesting trade biographies and then created teacher curriculum guides. ‘Blueprints for Biography’ shows kids the life behind the invention or the life behind the discovery and makes engineering and science very personal for children.” Some examples of the Engineering is Elementary units included in the STEM Starters+ project are “Sounds Like Fun: Seeing Animal Sounds,” which focuses on the design of a visual representation for various bird sounds, as well as “Lighten Up: Designing Lighting Systems,” which culminates with the design and creation of a lighting system for a tomb of hieroglyphs. “I love the structure and flow of the lessons,” said Joyce Dalton, a gifted and talented education specialist at Southside Elementary. “My students love the content and hands-on experiences. From discovering how real scientists look, to learning about what engineers do and don’t do, to meeting a real engineer, I see my students making progress in so many ways. They come to think of themselves as engineers because they are thinking like engineers. I see excitement as they build the projects and test them, and I see impressive science scores on the state test.”

Aaron Randolph

Kristy Kidd, Dr. Christine Deitz, and other staff members from the Jodie Mahony Center hosted trainings and workshops for Cabot educators focusing on the curricular components of STEM Starters+ as well as the use of the components to identify and develop talent in young students. The Museum of Science, Boston developed the engineering units used in the STEM Starters+ project. The EiE units use a cross disciplinary and hands-on approach to introduce the engineering design process to elementary students. Robinson attributes the success of STEM Starters+ to the development of an effective collaboration among teachers, researchers, educational specialists, school districts, and agencies to establish effective STEM opportunities in schools. “This collaboration was a perfect match of enthusiasm, expertise, and commitment. It just shows how powerful collaboration can be when it works,” Robinson said. “Dr. Cunningham brought her wealth of knowledge in engineering education. The Mahony Center brought its developed curriculum and teacher training knowledge. Our research methodologist, Dr. Jill Adelson, brought an understanding of early childhood education and a really powerful skill set for the analysis of classroom data in rigorously designed field studies. The final collaborators are our very effective school administrators who go above and beyond what a research and demonstration project requires. Leadership is what makes this collaboration work.” The program is currently in the fifth year of its research and development cycle, but two of the participating school districts have already expanded the program to additional schools. “At this phase of the project, we have worked with four school districts, and two school districts took the project district wide rather than in experimental schools only,” Robinson said. “You want projects like this to have a life beyond federal funding. Collaboration with school partners allows STEM Starters+ to be sustainable. I have no doubt that our partnership will continue to collaborate long beyond the life of the current grant. With universities, schools, and a museum working together, kids and teachers benefit from educational innovation.”

��Vlog��ý Little Rock instructor leads project to develop STEM education tool

Ajani Oyindamola — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 23:22:48 +0000

Ben Rainwater, instructor of systems engineering with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, will lead a project at Brown Engineers to create a water engineering computer simulation for students in grades six through 12. , an electrical engineering consulting firm in Little Rock, was awarded a $225,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Science Foundation. The simulation will be used to promote Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education across the state. “We envision students would go through a guided simulation and then a game where the students are asked to solve a problem or respond to a crisis,” Rainwater said. “For example, the students could be asked to bring a central water line to a town. They would use math, science, and engineering principles to build a functioning water plant. It would be a rich environment to teach the students.” Rainwater, electrical design engineer at Brown Engineers, will serve as the project’s principal investigator, while his co-worker, Sam Vandiver, lead technologist, will be the lead technical advisor. “The project is intended to teach students about water engineering and career education,” Rainwater said. “We want to translate engineering practice to engineering education to teach students how to apply the concepts they are learning in the classroom.” The simulation will educate students about the water purification process, engineering skills needed to create infrastructure, water conservation, and careers in the water treatment industry. “We think that it is valuable to train students on pathways to water-related jobs and to tackle challenges related to our shared and most valuable resource,” he said. The encourages small businesses to engage in research and development that has the potential for commercialization. The one-year Phase 1 grant will cover market research costs like conducting interviews with educators and curriculum developers to understand the STEM education market. Brown Engineers will apply for a Phase II grant, which supports the development of the product, by the end of the year, Rainwater said. Rainwater completed his Master of Science degree and Ph.D. in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His Ph.D. research includes new materials development for emerging energy technologies with support from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy. Rainwater has worked at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock since 2016 and teaches Introduction to Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Materials classes. “It’s a great opportunity to teach engineering materials to students,” he said. “Dr. Andrew Wright, Dr. Ibrahim Nisanci, and Dr. Alex Biris have been great mentors in the Systems Engineering department, and I’m lucky to get to teach my favorite subject.”

- University News Archive - ����Vlog��ý Little Rock

Innovative Collaboration equals success for Award-winning STEM Starters+ Program

����Vlog��ý Little Rock instructor leads project to develop STEM education tool

- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

��Vlog��ý Little Rock instructor leads project to develop STEM education tool