scholarly journals “This is the biggest place where you can express your imagination”: Information practices of middle school students at a school library makerspace

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaofeng Li ◽  
Ross J. Todd
Keyword(s):  
Informal Learning ◽  
School Library ◽  
Approaches To Learning ◽  
School Students ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
Information Practices ◽  
Engineering Mathematics ◽  
Initial Interviews ◽  
Informal Learning Environment

This study aims to understand what brought a group of middle students to their school library makerspace, their questions, information practices, and barriers in their participation. Informed by Dervin’s sense-making verbing approach and sociocultural approaches to learning, qualitative data were collected through initial interviews, surveys, follow-up interviews, and weekly field observations over six months. The findings show that the school library makerspace was a social and informal learning environment for the students to have fun, be creative and develop skills in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and arts. Their information practices ranged from tinkering with materials and technologies, and getting help from interpersonal resources. This study highlights the information practices at the library makerspace were social in nature, embodied through materials and tools, and embedded in the formal educational system; this study also sheds light on the affordances and constraints of the materials and computers in the students’ activities at makerspace.

scholarly journals STEM-aspiraties en studiekeuze in het secundair onderwijs in Vlaanderen: de intersectie van gender en etniciteit

2021 ◽  
pp. 117-140
Author(s):  
Lore Van Praag ◽  
Roslyn Arlin Mickelson ◽  
Peter A.J. Stevens ◽  
Mieke Van Houtte
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Secondary School Students ◽  
Stem Careers ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
School Students ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
Engineering Mathematics ◽  
Lower Status ◽  
Stem Career

This article explores why some Flemish secondary school students’ study choices are content-wise not in line with their career aspirations and, to some extent, follow gender and ethnic patterns. We use 83 semi-structured interviews, conducted with students in academic and technical tracks in three Flemish secondary schools. Compared to female pupils, male pupils are more likely to enrol in lower status tracks whose curricular substance prepares them for a STEM career (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). Ethnic majority female pupils seem to adjust their study choices better to their aspirations, or the other way round. However, especially when changing track or field of study, ethnic majority female pupils are more likely to adapt their aspirations consistent with gender norms. While ethnic minority female pupils are more likely than ethnic majority female pupils to have STEM aspirations, their goals do not always seem to correspond with the study choices they have made. Additionally, perceived discrimination and family aspirations further impact both study choices and aspirations of ethnic minority pupils. Gendered study recommendations and choices, favouring male pupils in STEM careers, especially make that female pupils make study choices that are in terms of curriculum not always in line with their aspirations.

The effect of informal learning environment upon students’ understanding of science-technology-society-environment

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (9) ◽  
pp. 22-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merve Cansu Ince ◽  
Bayram Costu
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environment ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Informal Education ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Informal Learning Environments ◽  
Science Technology Society ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
Informal Learning Environment ◽  
Out Of School

It is known that an informal learning environment (i.e., out-of-school) increases the quality of teaching and learning activities. Informal environments also provide many advantages such as enriching the content of learning. Moreover, it is emphasised that the science-technology-society-environment (STSE) learning does not effectively involve in the Turkish education system. From this point of view, informal learning environments should be considered in order to enable students’ understanding of the STSE relation. Within the scope of this study, it was aimed to determine the effectiveness of study visit on students’ understanding of STSE. The research was conducted with 14 male students in the 5th-grade level in the 2016– 2017 academic year. This research, which used a recycling-solid waste collection centre, a botanic garden, a planetarium, a science centre and a zoo, a few informal learning environments, was conducted according to the case study design method. In the study, views on science-technology-society questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, observation forms and diaries were used as data collection tools. The data indicated that the informal learning environments were inadequate to promote conceptual change; however, it was effective to comprehend newly learnt concepts. In addition, it was also concluded that informal learning environment provided students to capture the understanding of STSE relations. Keywords: Science-technology-society-environment (STSE), informal education, out-of-school environment.

Peculiarities of preparing schoolchildren for VEX IQ Challenge robotic competitions

2020 ◽  
pp. 16-23
Author(s):  
A. M. Kostyuk
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School Students ◽  
Robot Control ◽  
Main Stage ◽  
Educational Robotics ◽  
School Students ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
Engineering Mathematics ◽  
Two Stages ◽  
Work Done ◽  
And Robotics

Educational robotics can be considered as one of the areas of the STEM educational system (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), since in the classes on robotics, students develop knowledge not only in informatics, but also in physics, chemistry, mathematics, technology. One of the important areas of work with schoolchildren in the field of robotics is their participation in robotics competitions and the corresponding preparation of students for these competitions. The article discusses the experience of using the VEX IQ in robotics classes with elementary school students and the peculiarities of preparing students for the All-Russian VEX IQ Challenge robotics competitions. The importance of dividing the preparation for the competition into two stages — preliminary and main — is justified. The preliminary stage includes the study of the basics of design, programming, mechanics and robotics, the design of robots according to ready-made instructions, and participation in VEX IQ Challenge training competitions. The main stage includes the design of a competition robot, its construction, programming, modeling, robot control, further participation in the All-Russian VEX IQ Challenge competitions and analysis of the work done.

scholarly journals Implementing STEM-related Activities for School Aged Users

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virgilio Medina Jr. ◽  
Ross J. Todd
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environment ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Stem Education ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Future ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Informal Learning Environment

Published literature acknowledges the importance of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education in various educational institutions and its contributions to the future of a nation’s economy. This paper focuses on successful library STEM-based programs that were undertaken from August to September 2019 for school-aged users in a public library. This paper also explores users’ perceptions in attending STEM-based activities in the library as well as their feedback on how future library programs on STEM could further be improved. These findings seek to provide new perspectives for librarians, educators, teachers, and staff in creating opportunities for STEM-based initiatives in an informal learning environment.

scholarly journals Developing A STEM+M Identity in Underrepresented Minority Youth Through Biomechanics and Sports-Based Education

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brittany P Marshall ◽  
Amy Loya ◽  
John Drazan ◽  
Anthony Prato ◽  
Nicole Conley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Afterschool Programs ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
Underrepresented Minority ◽  
School Students ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Long Term Follow Up

Abstract A STEM+M identity, a form of social identity, is the extent to which an individual feels accepted in the STEM+M (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Medicine) career fields. The development of a strong STEM+M identity hinges largely on one's perceived self-efficacy in STEM+M and can be bolstered by associating STEM+M with other areas in which an individual already exhibits self-efficacy. In this study, a basketball camp served as a platform for STEM+M education in an effort to link participants' self-efficacy in basketball to STEM+M concepts where they may feel less self-efficacious. Over the first two years of the program, known as the Youth Sports Lab (YSL), two cohorts of underrepresented minority (URM) middle school students attended a 4-day long basketball camp hosted at Columbia University in partnership with Harlem- and Albany-based afterschool programs. The camp consisted of basketball training, jump plate fabrication, data collection, invited speakers, and group-based research projects. Our hypotheses were that participation in the program would lead to improved (1) familiarity, (2) perceived importance, and (3) interest in STEM+M. Participant responses, gathered from a 17-question Likert scale survey administered before and after the camp, demonstrated 10 questions with significantly increased responses due to the program. The results support the conclusion that the sports-based engineering program increased STEM+M identity in the URM cohort. Future improvements to the program will include mid-year student engagement and long-term follow-up.

Articulatory Intervention for the Visually Impaired

1979 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 139-144
Author(s):  
Cheri L. Florance ◽  
Judith O’Keefe
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Behavior Change ◽  
Visually Impaired ◽  
School Students ◽  
Handicapped Children ◽  
Paired Stimuli ◽  
Visually Handicapped ◽  
Parent Program

A modification of the Paired-Stimuli Parent Program (Florance, 1977) was adapted for the treatment of articulatory errors of visually handicapped children. Blind high school students served as clinical aides. A discussion of treatment methodology, and the results of administrating the program to 32 children, including a two-year follow-up evaluation to measure permanence of behavior change, is presented.

Integration of Self-diagnosis in Pascal Law Learning Using STEM Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 104
Author(s):  
Siti Hannah Padliyyah
Keyword(s):  
International Student ◽  
Student Assessment ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Stem Learning ◽  
International Student Assessment ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
Engineering Mathematics ◽  
Post Test ◽  
11Th Grade

Indonesia is ranked 56th out of 65 participating countries in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) based on data 2015. According to PISA results, the average science score of Indonesian students is 403, where this number is categorized as low. This is because students are still in the process of understanding and have not yet fully recognized the location of their mistakes. Students can diagnose the location of their mistakes through self-diagnosis activities. Self-diagnosis activities require the active role of students during the learning process. One approach that can increase the active role of students is STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics). However, research at this time is still rarely found self-diagnosis activities that are applied to the STEM approach. Therefore, this research has the aim to find out the increase in mastery of physical concepts and self-diagnosis of students on the STEM learning approach to the theory of poscal law class XI High School.This study uses a One-Group pretest-posttest design with a sample of 30 ini 11th grade highschool from one schools in Bandung. . Based on the findings, there is an increase in mastery of concepts [<g> = 0.51] from pre-test to post-test. In self-diagnosis activities identified that there are differences in scores [z = 1.75; p = 0.9599] student assessment results of researchers and self-scoring results. Deeper self-diagnosis triggers a series of implicit steps that encourage them to rearrange their cognition by correcting the mistakes they make when solving problems. So that learning activities using the STEM approach that involves self-diagnosis activities can improve students' mastery of concepts.

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