Welcome to the AMP-IT-UP video showcase!

I am a research faculty member at Georgia Tech and co-PI of the AMP-IT-UP project. This seven yearlong MSP project ended on September 2019. Our video highlights the middle school engineering courses (STEM-Innovation and Design (STEM-ID)), 1-week math and science modules, and the K-12 Challenge competition that were developed as part of the project. STEM-ID courses align with national math and science standards, promote the use of the engineering design process, introduce students to advanced manufacturing tools, incorporate engineering concepts, increase student awareness of career paths, and problem-solving, teamwork, and communication skills.

The math and science modules align with best practices put forth in the Next Generation Science Standards and the Standards of Mathematical Practice and promote STEM learning by engaging middle school students in problem-based inquiry lessons that emphasize collecting, visualizing, interpreting, and communicating authentic and compelling data. Research results have shown that the modules have been effective in supporting teachers’ adoption of practices related to project-base and inquiry learning, and evidence suggests that the teachers are incorporating these pedagogical strategies into their other lesson plans. We have published numerous articles from this project and could be downloaded from the publication website.

 The curriculum components that are described can be found at https://ampitup.gatech.edu/amp-it-brochure ,and they are free for download. Currently, we are working on disseminating and implementing the curriculum across Georgia and the United States. Dr. Marion Usselman, PI of the project, can provide more information about the dissemination efforts and teacher professional development.

We look forward to hearing your comments about the project.

Meltem

 What a great project! I like your modular approach.Thank you for sharing your resources. The publication link is working but the brochure one is not. 

A very exciting project to bring much-needed engineering design curricula to midde schools! And it's fantastic you're seeing evidence that teachers are using the strategies in other lessons. In what school systems did you first pilot the project? As you expand, have you gotten any feedback from teachers about the ease or difficulty of acquiring the needed materials? 

The Griffin-Spalding County School system, which is a rural-fringe school system south of Atlanta, was our partner in the MSP project.  Since that time we have expanded the project throughout Gwinnett County Schools, which is the largest school system in Georgia, Ascension Parish schools in Louisiana, and some small districts in rural GA.  Fulton County Schools, another large system in metro-Atlanta, is adopting the STEM-ID courses combined with the math and science modules as a year-long math enrichment program to promote algebra readiness.

Materials for the math and science modules are generally readily available, and information about procurement is included in the materials download. A couple of the math modules require a 3D printed part, but the print file is included (if your school or district has a 3D printer), or we provide them at cost on our website.

The STEM-ID courses have more equipment needs, but if they are offered as part of a school's Career and Technical Education program, there are often Perkins funds available to support the costs.  Generally the decision to adopt the engineering curriculum is made by the school system CTE administrators, not by individual teachers.  We have some agreements in place with the equipment suppliers to try to decrease the costs.  We are interested in talking to schools who would like to offer middle school engineering or integrated STEM courses.  We have very strong research evidence that shows a significant beneficial effect on math and science achievement, particularly among weaker students, and a strengthening of student engagement with STEM and decrease in math and science anxiety.  

Great to see a well-developed, tested, and packaged project so far along -- in dissemination and scaling up mode.  Thanks for sharing your experience.  I'm a program evaluator working with TEEMS, which is in the first year of development and piloting a engineering curriculum resources using the tenets of Imaginative Education for use in middle school classrooms. Over the course of the year, we were refining and testing various measurement instruments to look at student engagement, STEM identity, efficacy, transfer knowledge, as well as conceptual understanding.  Based on your work, I'd  be interested in learning more about how you measured student progress and outcomes.Thanks for sharing your learning about what worked and what showed promise. 

AMP-IT-UP is fabulous!  A few years ago, AMSTI specialists attended this PL to enhance their science coaching practices.  AMP-IT-UP partners also attended the ACTM Fall Forum to present sessions to Alabama math teachers.  

Thanks for visiting Kate. We have multiple instruments that were developed and tested as part of this project. The student survey focused on measuring engagement (cognitive, emotional, and behavioral), academic self-efficacy, persistent in STEM, problem-solving, and communication skills. We also have a validated test measuring student's understanding of engineering design process. I am happy to share the instruments with you. Also, it is interesting that you mentioned the knowledge transfer. We conducted a qualitative study about how students were transferring the knowledge between math, science and engineering courses. It was evident that it was impacting their learning. 

What an awesome learning opportunity for students and educators! I'm excited that at its core, students engage in authentic engineering experiences that focus on real issues and phenomena. Where can I learn more about the student projects in the K-12 invention and entrepreneurship competitions? Thanks.

Great work, Meltem. As usual, your work focusing on the intersection of standards, teacher needs, and innovation via instruction lead to powerful outcomes that are immediately deployable and transformative. The entrepreneurship competition adds another layer of depth too, which I'm sure ignites the passion of additional students.

I am very excited to learn more and share with middle schools in Maine.  I am curious about your evaluation.  You mentioned that teachers are able to transfer pedogogical practices to other areas.  I would love to hear more about some of those practices that they implemented and were able to be transferred.  Nice work!!

This looks like a wonderful program and I appreciate that it serves students in rural areas. Did the rural setting factor into any of the accommodations you developed for this project?

The school system partner in our program is a rural-fringe, somewhat depressed manufacturing area of GA, so all materials were developed with those students in mind.  Because of our initial focusing on manufacturing, a number of the scenarios have manufacturing and entrepreneurship contexts.  But we tried to be as inclusive in developing scenarios as possible.  

The biggest issue we have with our rural settings is the lack of available engineering teachers. There is an extreme shortage of engineering teachers for both middle and high school statewide, but the rural counties have an even larger problem than the cities attracting them.  For middle schools, our view is that if someone knows how to teach, then we can train them on the engineering content needed for our STEM-ID engineering courses.  One of our best teachers was a former bank manager who wanted to teach, and the engineering class was the one available.  

An additional problem is always funding, and the urban schools have more money available than the rural ones.  However, we are working with 3D printer manufacturers and other equipment suppliers to try to locate used equipment and get deals, and we try to help systems identify other sources of funds.  We'll work with any district to try to come up with a way to incorporate our materials.

Great resource for schools and teachers! Can you expand a bit on the data types that you collect from/during/after the intervention (video, worksheets, assessments, etc.).  The video mentioned higher participation in STEM and higher state test scores in science and math.  Higher than previous years? Than a control group? As an in situ intervention, am very interested in the data collection and analysis.  Thanks for sharing. 

Thank you, Michael. We have various data sources, including multiple years of student interviews, classroom observation (including fidelity of implementation research in engineering classrooms), student products, student achievement data, student surveys, teacher surveys etc. We also had control groups for the engineering classroom. Students are/were placed in the engineering class randomly every year, so a student can take the class 3 three years in a row through their middle school year, or twice or once, or none. Naturally, this created some control groups for our study. Please review our paper for data and groups, here is the link . You can also find download the paper in our publication site. It explains the details of the data and groups. 

Kudos - Few such curricula have research results to show effectiveness of incorporation into teachers' practices, especially in terms of transferring to other lessons. Email me to see how AAAS can help share the materials via ARISE/Noyce.

I want to echo what several other have said; it is great that teachers report adjusting their practices. That's such a powerful indicator of this project's success -- teachers are happy to adapt and adopt when they see good things happening for their students. 

This is a great opportunity to engage students in the love of STEM. The question is how can this program can be scaled up and made accessible to more underrepresented students in STEM? This project requires a lot of resources, something that students of low socioeconomic situation lack....I love the program for I am a supporter of project based programs...as well as inquiry based STEM... teaching and learning is more fun that way and it looks like the students are having fun while learning...

I would love to learn more about the PD needed before implementation of units and the level and type of scaffolding provided to teachers in the materials themselves and while implementing. There is always a balance to find between preparing a teacher to work with new content and not overwhelming teachers and placing too many burdens on teachers who are already super busy.  What are some key things you learned about finding the right balance in supporting teachers?

I really appreciate your work. For over 4-years we at Bethune-Cookman University have been working with a neighboring middle school on the establishing a STEM Academy. The middle school sits in a majority African American community and resources and most importantly students and parents' disposition have been a challenge. We also have been encountering political challenges, district and school administration reorganizations, or constant changes of personnel. I would like to have a conversation with your team on how you are dealing with these and other challenges.. 

Job well done...Dr. Torres (Hector)

This is interesting work with promising results. Have you tested the effects of this applied activity in engagement and self-efficacy among students that are underrepresented in STEM fields, such as girls and students of color? Do you have an idea of long-term effects of this type of learning activity? 

Thanks, Lisa. If you review this paper, you will see the results of engagement and self-efficacy. You can also download it from our publication website in my original post. I am not sure what you mean by long-term effects but as you probably know, in applied research, it is hard to follow students long-time. Especially with the school district that has high-turnover. Once they move out of the school district, we cannot really follow them. But you will see in the paper that we have followed students through their middle school and the results show that students who had taken the engineering courses 2 or more times increased their test scores, also positive engagement. Additionally, the schools, where the study was implemented, were predominantly African-American students. Feel free to email me after you review the paper if you have more questions.