iSTEM began with students in 6th-8th grade.  The students and the program made a three year commitment which  supported their development. The students have been engaged in a long-term (3 year) STEM technology program that includes 5-week summer programs, Saturday academies during the academic year, hands-on  field experience, laboratory/project-based entrepreneurship tasks,  mentorship, and parental involvement.  The parents reported during focus groups that the three year commitment has been an important component of the program design and was one of the things that attracted them to iSTEM.  There was 100% retention over the course of the first year and over the three years the overall retention rate has been 69.4%.  I would like to ask other presenters in this forum and other individuals who are involved in youth STEM education....do you think a long-term commitment by students, families and/or the project is a helpful aspect of the program design?  How could you integrate a similar long-term intervention into projects that you are involved with?

iSTEM leverages and extends NSF funded DR K-12 and Noyce programs by having DRK-12 and Noyce scholars  (who are pre-service STEM educators) serving as near peer educators for  iSTEM participants.   This provides additional teaching experience for the pre-service teachers and provides an additional level of support to the iSTEM students.  

Congratulations on your program and, especially, the high retention rate over three years.  My experience as been that it is hard to keep students engaged in multi-year out of school programs as they begin (or are pushed by social pressure or parents) into other activities.  What have you found to be most useful ways to keep the students in the program?

Hello everyone, 

Thank you so much for your interest in our project. We are attending the ITEST summit in Alexandria today and tomorrow presenting some of our findings.   One of our presentations today is on collaborations.   We are interested to know how you encourage collaborations both within your institution as well as across institutions.   We have built upon long standing inter-institutional collaborations with educators from local area schools that began as part of the DRK-12 project.  These collaborations have developed into a learning community such that the pre-college educators are able to enlighten the group as to where their students are and what their students' needs are while the college level educators are able to enlighten the group as to college level expectations.  iSTEM has broadened the collaborations to include STEM professionals from the community and industry to provide opportunities to interact with and learn from working STEM professionals. 

I love the reciprocal learning process here. How do you choose the STEM projects to engage the students? How do you choose the sites/schools? 

thanks great work!

Thanks for the Questions Shabnam.  

The site for the program is Morehouse College which is where the PI, Dr. Trawick is located.   The pre-college teachers involved in iSTEM are from the local school districts including Atlanta Public Schools, Fayette County, and Fulton County and are long-term collaborators with Dr. Trawick. The students that participate in the program come from a variety of schools in the greater Atlanta area. 

The Overall Theme  of iSTEM is  Colonization of Earth’s Moon and all of the instructors utilized Project Based Learning pedagogy with each year focusing on a different aspect of this process such as transportation or growing food. 

Great work! I am wondering how many students you have served so far, and are you following them into high school? Are you collecting any longitudinal data that can speak to the impact the program has on students after the 3 years are up?

Thanks for your interest Rachel.  

• 42 students began in year one with 100% retention of program participants though the end of the full first year
• 67 committed middle and high school students from underrepresented populations have participated over the course of 3 years. Overall retention rate equals 69.4%.

As with many projects, there is no funding to follow the students to collect longitudinal data.  However, several of the students are currently in high school as the started in 6th-8th grade. 

Thank you for sharing your work! What made you decide on 6th to 8th grade students?

It has become apparent that early recruitment of students is critical for the integration of underrepresented minorities in STEM fields.  Early recruitment has been demonstrated to have a plethora of benefits including:  prevention of early attrition from available student pools, remedial assistance while academic problems are relatively minor, increased advisement for course selection, enhanced access to supplemental STEM opportunities, enhanced mentoring and advisement for college admissions, increased access to positive role models; enhancement of content knowledge, etc (eg Davis & Davidson, 1982; George et al 2001; Kimmel & Cano, 2001; Manton et al 2000; Shawna et al 2001 Kardash, 2000; McNally, 2006;  Chen & Weko, 2009; Anderson et al, 1994; Campbell et al 2000; Denes et al 1998; Maton et al 2000; Matyas et al 1991).   

In addition to the literature, the working team for iSTEM had previously worked with high school students from the area and felt that reaching back to the middle school would be advantageous.  

Good morning everyone.  In case you are interested, here are the links to our prior video showcase videos

http://stemforall2017.videohall.com/presentatio...

http://stemforall2016.videohall.com/presentatio...

Great project!  I understand there is no longitudinal data being collected as of yet, but I am wondering whether you have any informal/anecdotal information regarding student's confidence while selecting STEM courses once they enter high school.  

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to learn more about iSTEM at Morehouse College.  

Additional information, videos and photos can be found on the program website.  

http://www.morehouse.edu/istem/

Additional information about the Institute for Biomedical Philosophy and our evaluation can be found at www.BioPhi.org

Have a fantastic summer!