Developing Partnerships Among Organizations and Learning Institutions to Advance Informal STEM Learning

University Of California-San Diego, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

Although many communities across the United States seek greater access to high-quality STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning, sustained and well-coordinated informal STEM learning opportunities remain limited in many community-based settings. To address this need, this project establishes a planning partnership among an institution of higher education, the University of California San Diego; a nonprofit educational organization, the Teaching and Learning Collaborative; and a community-based organization, the Karen Organization of San Diego. Together, the three partners will plan and participate in a series of informal STEM learning activities in which they learn more about the strengths, lived experiences, wishes, and educational goals of the community to ensure the informal learning experiences align with their community needs. Through a series of co-design workshops and pilot activities, the partners will collaboratively develop maker-based learning experiences focused on building computer science and artificial intelligence literacy with the community members. In parallel, the project will generate a transferable framework for collaboration that documents effective strategies for planning, implementing, and studying community-driven informal STEM learning. The project will result in a widely disseminated partnership-development model that can be adapted by other community-based organizations and learning institutions seeking to expand informal STEM learning opportunities for the community members they serve. Over the long term, this work is expected to strengthen participation in STEM learning pathways among various community members, including the youth and families, across the United States. Organizations with complementary expertise will engage in joint learning activities to better understand the educational goals of the youths, caregivers, elders, and leaders of the community. Partners will collaboratively plan, implement, evaluate, and improve/refine multigenerational maker activities designed to build participants' STEM, computer science, and artificial intelligence literacies. Research will examine how community-based organizations and educational institutions form productive partnerships, establish shared decision-making processes, and sustain collaborative planning structures that support high-quality informal STEM learning. Data sources will include detailed documentation of planning meetings, reflective journals from leadership team members across all partner organizations, brief participant questionnaires, and group interviews with the community members. Inductive analyses will generate evidence-based insights into partnership development processes and informal learning design, forming the foundation for future research and practice agenda on community-driven, technology-rich informal STEM learning. 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.