year 3Background and Context• STEM Teaching Fellowship: – Teachers apply in school teams of 3-4; typical composition includes both science and mathematics teachers, mostly middle school – Three main strands: STEM Integration, Core Teaching Practices, Schoolwide STEM Strategic Plan 4Background and Context• Approach to STEM Integration Strand – Experience STEM integration as learners – Reflect and unpack as educators – Introduce tools, strategies, and templates to empower teaching fellows to engage their students in STEM Integration• Summer 1: Platform Design• Summer 2: Flint Experience
most affected by long termprofessional development as opposed to a one-time workshop [8]. Based on this information and conversations with local school leaders, the authors beganhosting the miniGEMS STEAM camp for the first time in Summer 2015. miniGEMS initiallystarted as a free five-day long STEAM summer camp for middle school girls from various localschool districts. The camp was planned and directed by the authors, Dr. Michael Frye and Dr.Sreerenjini Nair, and involves university undergraduate lab research assistants and middle schoolSTEAM teachers. The camp was conducted for the third consecutive summer at the AVS Lablast year and was expanded to a two-week camp. Additionally, four separate camps were heldlast summer. This paper
central evaluation questions addressed by the evaluation were as follows: 1. What do youth learn about the design process and engineering through participation? 2. How does participation in the program influence youth attitudes towards STEM in general and engineering in particular? 3. How does participation in the program influence youth plans for future college and career?ProgramDesignThe TechHive program was designed to create a culture of HOMAGO (Hang Out, Mess Around& Geek Out) for participants. HOMAGO was initially developed as a theory of how youthinteract with new media, using it to “hang out” and extend their friendships, “mess around” toexplore their interests and tinker, and “geek out” by diving deeply into
thelikelihood of women to enter engineering. The review of a robotics program by Weinberg, et al.(2007) as reported in this article indicated that after 7 weeks of participation, girls had a higherinterest in engineering and a more positive attitude towards engineering. Other programs havestruggled to define positive outcomes especially in the long term. [26] evaluated a 2-weekresidential science enrichment program for high-achieving eighth-grade girls. Outcomes weremeasured 4 years after the program, for both program participants and applicants who did notattend. The study found no effect of program participation on a variety of outcomes, includingscience self-concept and interest and plans for a college science major. In previous research bythis