2987 Views (as of 05/2023)
  1. Kelsey Savage
  2. Development Officer
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. Complexly, Education Development Center
  1. Rachel Alatalo
  2. Script Editor
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. Complexly
  1. Emily Braham
  2. Research Associate II
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. Education Development Center
  1. Heather Lavigne
  2. http://cct.edc.org/people/lavigne-heather-0
  3. Research Scientist
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. Education Development Center
  1. Soledad Machado Corral
  2. http://soledadmachado.com/
  3. Consultant
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. Complexly

Collaborative Research: The Development of Culturally Responsive Digital Medi...

NSF Awards: 2005586

2021 (see original presentation & discussion)

Undergraduate, Adult learners, Informal / multi-age

Across the U.S. there are significant STEM opportunity gaps for learners with varying levels of English proficiency. This is at a time when the U.S. is facing a shortage of STEM professionals in the workforce including the life and physical science fields. This project aims to close these gaps for adult learners using Crash Course, a Youtube video series that already has a worldwide audience of STEM learners. This project aims to study how Crash Course can be adapted to use culturally responsive instructional practices that support engagement and STEM knowledge development in emergent multilingual students. Using a Design-Based Implementation Research framework, the project will advance through stages of prototype development, iterative design, and a pilot study to assess promise. The goals are to enhance STEM knowledge and support greater engagement and self-efficacy in learning about science. Project partners are Complexly, a producer of digital STEM media and EDC, a research organization with experience in studying informal STEM learning. The project has the potential to significantly broaden participation and advance equity in science learning opportunities.

We’re looking for feedback from Spanish-speaking science educators and students to understand how this new video series can support students’ learning.

Learn more about how you can share your feedback on the videos here:

For Educators: https://edc.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2uCryltsg0wOddY

For Students: https://edc.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dmMDTY5ZlxmPLka

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Discussion from the 2021 STEM For All Video Showcase (25 posts)
  • Icon for: Emily Braham

    Emily Braham

    Co-Presenter
    Research Associate II
    May 10, 2021 | 04:54 p.m.

    Thank you for watching our video! 

    Our project team is very interested in your feedback. We’re especially looking for ideas about how to broaden participation in this research to Spanish-speaking science educators and students across the country. What strategies do you use in your work to involve the stakeholders and beneficiaries of your research?  What are your successful strategies for building deep partnerships?

    Are you a teacher or student and would like to be involved in this work? Learn more at the links below!

     
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    Kimberly Elliott
    Rachel Alatalo
  • Icon for: Stephen Uzzo

    Stephen Uzzo

    Facilitator
    Chief Scientist
    May 11, 2021 | 09:51 a.m.

    Heather and team – very ambitious and interesting work! We work extensively with our Spanish speaking community and one question we have not had a good answer to how to be culturally responsive across the diaspora. Much of our Spanish speaking community is Ecuadorian (the largest Ecuadorian population outside of Ecuador), but the Spanish speaking communities represent so many diverse cultures themselves that we are kind of at a loss to know where to start. What process have you used to think about being culturally responsive across the many different cultures that we use the catchment of “Hispanic” or “Latinex” to group together?

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Kelsey Savage
    Rachel Alatalo
    Kimberly Elliott
  • Icon for: Rachel Alatalo

    Rachel Alatalo

    Co-Presenter
    Script Editor
    May 11, 2021 | 11:53 a.m.

    Hi Stephen! This is an excellent question, and one we have been considering ourselves throughout the development of the series. While we know it would be impossible to write video scripts in truly “neutral” Spanish or for our videos to be culturally responsive for 100% of people, our strategy during development so far has been to include as many perspectives as possible so we can reach as many people as we can.


    Each member of our content team speaks a different variety of Spanish, and we’ve assembled a team of advisors that we can reach out to about dialect questions (we recently checked in about using decimal points versus decimal commas!). Also, we’ll be testing the first few videos as prototypes in order to get feedback from a wide variety of students and teachers. I see this as an opportunity to “check our work”—we’ll be revising the videos based on feedback, so if our cultural references, word choice, or examples don’t feel authentic to a large group of Latinx viewers, we’ll be able to adjust. Overall, I think the more perspectives you can include in the production and review of your project, the better!

     
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    Kimberly Elliott
  • Icon for: Billy Spitzer

    Billy Spitzer

    Facilitator
    PI
    May 11, 2021 | 09:53 a.m.

    Emily,

    Thanks so much for sharing your project, and for fluidly integrating Spanish and English language in your video -- I thought this was a great example of practicing what you preach. I really appreciated the way your project built on an existing series, was informed by a needs assessment, and used culturally responsive instructional strategies rather than just language translation. I am curious to hear what you have learned from the pilot phase, and was wondering if you have any formative evaluation results to share?

     
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    Rachel Alatalo
    Kimberly Elliott
  • Icon for: Emily Braham

    Emily Braham

    Co-Presenter
    Research Associate II
    May 11, 2021 | 12:00 p.m.

    Thanks for the encouragement and question, Billy! In the initial needs assessment, we found that students and educators responded positively to the overall approach of existing Crash Course videos. We heard that they found the videos to be engaging and to support learning. Educators told us that they saw their own instructional strategies reflected in the Crash Course videos including the use of images, animations, how the content is connected to relatable, real-life examples.

    Most of the suggestions from educators and students revolved around finding ways to support comprehension for multilingual learners. Some of the things that were suggested included using a slower speaking pace and having more text on the screen, using culturally relevant examples and having a host that is relatable. We’re now in the process of using what we learned from this assessment to develop the pilot chemistry videos. We’re now recruiting Spanish-speaking science educators and students who will have a chance to preview these prototypes and provide feedback!

     
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    Rachel Alatalo
    Kimberly Elliott
  • Icon for: Billy Spitzer

    Billy Spitzer

    Facilitator
    PI
    May 12, 2021 | 10:12 a.m.

    Thanks Emily! It's great that you are really paying attention to all the nuances that are important to success, and incorporating what you are learning into the next round of materials. I think a lot of what you are learning could be helpful in defining best practices for other projects attempting cross-cultural translation.

  • Icon for: Josias Gomez

    Josias Gomez

    Graduate Doctoral Research
    May 11, 2021 | 01:55 p.m.

    Emily and team,

    I like that you are approaching Hispanic participation through community and culturally aware educators. I have noticed educational videos in the past that were simply translated or voice over literally, and so, the meaning and interesting explanations were partially "lost in translation." I think it is important to seek and train educators to transmit information efficiently into different communities using examples and words they can relate to without a doubt.

    As for efficient ways to establish partnerships for developing content or even your audience, graduate students are a great resource, especially, from universities which have a pedagogical training program. Reaching out to them through their respective departments can be beneficial for you and them. Among the three institutions involved in our program for example, we have a diverse group of students from multiple countries including Spanish-speaking ones and we have a pedagogical training to develop them as instructors. Hence, I am positive there are graduate students within STEM who would be glad to partner with you and gained experience.

     

     
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    Rachel Alatalo
    Kimberly Elliott
  • Icon for: Emily Braham

    Emily Braham

    Co-Presenter
    Research Associate II
    May 11, 2021 | 05:52 p.m.

    Hi Josias! Thank you for watching our video and making these excellent points about using meaningful and relatable examples. In our needs assessment, this was something that was frequently brought up by the educators we interviewed!

    Partnering with graduate students around this work is a great idea! Thank you for this suggestion and if you know any graduate student instructors who may be interested in partnering with us or providing feedback on the new videos, we would love to hear from them. They can get in touch with us through this interest form: https://go.edc.org/CCeducators

    I look forward to watching your video and learning more about your project! 

     
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    Rachel Alatalo
  • Icon for: Anne Stevenson

    Anne Stevenson

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 12, 2021 | 11:16 a.m.

    Thank you for offering some very thought-provoking information in your video!  I am looking forward to learning more through your links. We have discussed some of these issues as we have done work in 4-H, and I so appreciate your insights! Do you have any suggestions around how informal science settings, such as 4-H which is open to young people in K-Gr 12+, can best partner with grad students and pre-service teachers to help formal educators be more aware of this educational setting and the teaching/leading opportunities it provides? Thank you and I look forward to learning more. I'd invite you to see our video to learn more about our partnership between Chemistry research and informal education through 4-H across the country.

     
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    Rachel Alatalo
    Kimberly Elliott
  • Icon for: Kelsey Savage

    Kelsey Savage

    Lead Presenter
    Development Officer
    May 13, 2021 | 11:43 a.m.

    Hi Anne, 
     
    Thanks for inviting us to learn more about your project. What a great collaborative project to get K-8 learners interested in chemistry in a hands-on way! 
     
    This is a challenging question to answer, but at Crash Course we've used social media to share our free resources widely. From there, both educators and students in formal and informal settings were able to easily find our resources and recommend them to other learners. A key piece of our approach has been to consistently listen to feedback from educators in formal settings and share our work in a way that's authentic to us. 
     
    Outside of this project, Sole from our team also has also led outreach programs and suggested that you could also set up something like a volunteer program for grad students. Sole also suggested you could have "teacher allies", that is, people who know what resources are available, have implemented in their classrooms, and can show other teachers how your materials can be adapted to their classrooms. 

     
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    Rachel Alatalo
  • Icon for: Kimberly Arcand

    Kimberly Arcand

    Researcher
    May 12, 2021 | 11:51 a.m.

    Thank you for tackling this important issue!  I'm so glad that you're doing this from a cultural perspective and not just a direct translation.  I hope to follow your example for future projects.

     
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    Sasha Palmquist
    Rachel Alatalo
  • Icon for: Soledad Machado Corral

    Soledad Machado Corral

    Co-Presenter
    Consultant
    May 12, 2021 | 01:33 p.m.

    Thank you for your encouraging comment, Kimberly! Making an adaptation, not a translation, was very important for us from the very beginning.

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Rachel Alatalo
    Sasha Palmquist
  • Icon for: Julie Brown

    Julie Brown

    Researcher
    May 12, 2021 | 12:07 p.m.

    What a wonderful project, team! Thank you for sharing your video. Are you finding that you also need to change the scientists and images that are represented in the videos (alongside language and culturally-based resources)?

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Sasha Palmquist
    Rachel Alatalo
  • Icon for: Soledad Machado Corral

    Soledad Machado Corral

    Co-Presenter
    Consultant
    May 12, 2021 | 02:34 p.m.

    Hi Julie! Thank you for your question!

    That is certainly the case; we are giving a lot of thought to what and who is being portrayed in the videos. Some images will remain the same (for example, the periodic table will only be updated to include the new elements), but we take every graphic and on-screen element as an opportunity to include images and references that resonate with our audience. In particular, we want to avoid the idea of the "lone genius" and instead strive to show that ideas and discoveries are the collective work of many people. 

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Rachel Alatalo
    Sasha Palmquist
  • Icon for: Jorge Solis

    Jorge Solis

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 12, 2021 | 01:04 p.m.

    What an interesting project for this time we're living! I was wondering what you mean by "English learners" in college? This term is often referred to K-12 students receiving language support and also majority U.S. born. But, for college age students in the U.S. (in English) there are usual requirements for English language skills to enter college, if international students or speakers of a language other than English. So, these exams certify English language proficiency for college. Could you please share more about the students who are engage in this work. 

     
    1
    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Rachel Alatalo
  • Icon for: Emily Braham

    Emily Braham

    Co-Presenter
    Research Associate II
    May 12, 2021 | 02:28 p.m.

    Hi Jorge, thanks for watching our video! You bring up an important point for us to clarify. In our needs assessment, we focused on gathering feedback from Spanish-speaking students who were enrolled in ESL courses through adult continuing education programs at community colleges.   

     
    1
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    Rachel Alatalo
  • Icon for: Sasha Palmquist

    Sasha Palmquist

    Senior Manager of Community
    May 13, 2021 | 10:46 a.m.

    This is a great project and I really appreciate how the team used the subtitles in this video to illustrate the importance of the use of BOTH language AND culturally relevant contexts to support engagement and learning. I am eager to see the impact of this more wholistic approach to language adaptation as a mechanism to support accessibility. Can you share some additional details about the adaptation process and particularly an example (or more than one) of where a direct translation of an existing video was identified as being less optimal than an adaptation, and what choices were made to address that need for change? Thanks!!

     
    1
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    Rachel Alatalo
  • Icon for: Rachel Alatalo

    Rachel Alatalo

    Co-Presenter
    Script Editor
    May 14, 2021 | 11:33 a.m.

    Thanks, Sasha! We felt it was important to mirror the strategies we’ll be using in the adapted series in this video, so I’m glad to hear you appreciated that!


     


    Part of our adaptation process involved having our consultant and adapter, who are both native Spanish speakers and subject matter experts in chemistry, review the original series. Our consultant, Sole, created an Adaptation Guide identifying what could stay the same from one series to another and what should be changed to be more culturally relevant or more scientifically accurate—for example, when the original series was made, the IPK was still the standard for the kilogram, so we had to update our episode about standard units! Other suggestions included changing a reference to letter grades (since many countries use numbers instead), removing an illustration of figs from the discussion of significant figures (since the pun doesn’t work in translation), and altering an example that involved a silver mine (since for many people, silver mining is related to colonization and inequality, rather than a neutral or relatable example).


     


    As we’ve been working on the scripts, we’ve discovered more things that may need to be adapted rather than translated, and have had some great discussions about them! That’s one of the reasons I’m excited to use the first few episodes as prototypes and get survey feedback from students and educators. While we’ve done our best to catch as many issues as possible and come up with culturally competent changes to the scripts, the surveys will be a great “gut check” for how well our process is working.

     
    1
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    Kelsey Savage
  • Icon for: Nickolay Hristov

    Nickolay Hristov

    Facilitator
    Senior Scientist, Director, Associate Professor
    May 13, 2021 | 11:43 a.m.

    Hi Emily and Team, I wondered about host relatability as well and I’m glad you bring it up in one of your comments about feedback. While I find Hank quite relatable, my students did not. I have used crash course videos in my classes at a HBCU and found that my students preferred the Amoeba Sisters (where the hosts were cartoon amoebas). This might be one of the more high impact but also high cost changes that you could adopt for making these videos more useful to Spanish speaking students.

     
    1
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    Rachel Alatalo
  • Icon for: Kelsey Savage

    Kelsey Savage

    Lead Presenter
    Development Officer
    May 13, 2021 | 02:01 p.m.

    Thanks, Nickolay! The Amoeba Sisters are great! We admire their videos a lot. 

    Like you noted, host relatability is one of our big focus areas for this project. Using grant funds, we were able to reach out to a wide network of potential hosts who are native Spanish speakers and Chemistry educators for interviews. After that, we filmed sample scripts with three potential hosts to narrow down to our final selection, with whom we'll be filming pilot videos this summer. 

     
    1
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    Rachel Alatalo
  • Icon for: Daniel Zietlow

    Daniel Zietlow

    Informal Educator
    May 13, 2021 | 01:19 p.m.

    This is such a great project!  I'm excited to see more.  This is also something we've been thinking a lot about - producing culturally appropriate Spanish-language videos and materials rather than just translation our existing English ones.  I think a lot of my questions were already answered in the discussion, but one thing we've been trying to work on is changing the way we disseminate Spanish-language materials.  Have you found you changed your strategies so your materials is reaching larger audiences?

     
    1
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    Rachel Alatalo
  • Icon for: Kelsey Savage

    Kelsey Savage

    Lead Presenter
    Development Officer
    May 13, 2021 | 05:35 p.m.

    Thanks for the support, Daniel! Since we're in the pilot phase, we haven't disseminated our project videos yet but this is a great point that we'll be considering in the future. Crash Course publishes our videos on YouTube, which has a lot of Spanish-language content. I suspect our focus will still be the same: developing relationships with educators, students, and viewers who enjoy our content while leveraging our knowledge of how YouTube works to get as many learners as possible to see these videos. 

     
    1
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    Rachel Alatalo
  • Icon for: Daniel Zietlow

    Daniel Zietlow

    Informal Educator
    May 14, 2021 | 03:54 p.m.

    Thanks Kelsey!

  • Icon for: Claire Conway

    Claire Conway

    Informal Educator
    May 13, 2021 | 07:56 p.m.

    This is such fantastic news! Crash Course played a huge role in my own education -- I moved from a middle school with almost no STEM opportunity to taking biology, chemistry, and physics all at once in sixth grade and the transition was rough to say the least. The Crash Course lessons in those subjects not only helped me catch up to my peers, but made STEM something so fun, exciting, and approachable that it came to be my favorite part of school. I went on to pursue an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering, and have since started working in informal STEM education through the STEM Ecosystems initiative -- really coming full circle back to making STEM fun and approachable for all!

    It wasn't until I happened across this video that I realized just how influential Crash Course really was in my path. Making this content accessible for ALL learners is such important work. It's especially exciting to see that you all are approaching this project from the perspective of cultural inclusion, rather than just direct translation. 

    I look forward to learning more about this effort -- and a huge thank you to the whole Crash Course team for inspiring this STEMist all over again!

     
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    Rachel Alatalo
    Kelsey Savage
  • Icon for: Kelsey Savage

    Kelsey Savage

    Lead Presenter
    Development Officer
    May 14, 2021 | 10:45 a.m.

    Wow! Thanks for this very nice comment and the support, Claire. I've shared this with the Crash Course team -- we love hearing about how we've inspired learning and curiosity! Our mission is to lower barriers to knowledge building and we're excited to be undertaking this collaborative research with the team at EDC.   

     
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    Claire Conway
    Rachel Alatalo
  • Further posting is closed as the event has ended.