STEM+C Education Research Summit

Education Development Center, Waltham MA

Investigators

Abstract

The STEM+C Program focuses on research and development of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to the integration of computing within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teaching and learning for preK-12 students in both formal and informal settings. The Education Development Center (EDC) will develop and facilitate a STEM+C Education Research Summit that will support the STEM+C research community to collect, share, and analyze their research findings; address NSF's Big Ideas in computational STEM fields; and because of the powerful innovation and application of computing in the STEM disciplines, the Summit will continue to catalyze the research field for advancing real-world, interdisciplinary, and computational preparation of students from the early grades through high school. The STEM+C Research Summit design will be drawn from literature on best practices of innovation networks and communities of practice (COPs) to foster the development of a STEM+C innovation COP. The COP meeting design and facilitation will give PIs an opportunity to expand on their work and explore the confluence of issues and overlaps within the STEM+C community. To encourage a research culture that is globally engaged, an international panel of STEM+C researchers will be invited to present their research on advances in STEM+C in various countries. The Summit will be a working meeting, during which STEM+C community members will learn about advances made by community members, synthesize findings around emerging research themes, and identify and/or recommend new directions for STEM+C research. Working groups organized around emerging themes will represent a nexus of intellectual work that provides opportunities for PIs to deepen understandings and relationships in those areas. Outcomes of the Summit will include, development of a unique, interdisciplinary community of practice; collectively producing artifacts and products; increased understanding of the findings of STEM+C research projects; advancement of STEM+C evaluation methods to build expertise in designing research that will lead to viable outcomes as the foundation for education innovation; develop professional peer connections leading to future research collaborations; provide opportunities to engage in syntheses research activities and ongoing articulation of program-wide findings and lessons learned; and participation in a working group that will address future strategies for STEM+C education. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.