7142 Views (as of 05/2023)
  1. Caitlin Martin
  2. http://digitalyouthnetwork.org/staff/cailtlin-martin/
  3. Senior Researcher
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. Digital Youth Network, DePaul University
  1. Elaina Boytor
  2. http://elainaboytor.com
  3. Learning Experience Researcher
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. Digital Youth Network, DePaul University
  1. Sheena Erete
  2. Assistant Professor
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. DePaul University
  1. Nichole Pinkard
  2. http://digitalyouthnetwork.org/staff/nichole-pinkard/
  3. Professor and Co-Founder of Digital Youth Network
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. DePaul University, Digital Youth Network
  1. Asia Roberson
  2. Digital Youth Divas Project Manager
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. Digital Youth Network, DePaul University

Engaging Middle School Girls in Computational Electronic Design

NSF Awards: 1433838

2017 (see original presentation & discussion)

Grades 6-8

To truly broaden participation, we need to not only design quality programs and interventions for youth, but also better design strategies that can connect families and communities who have been underrepresented in STEM fields to the learning environments in which their children are immersed. Furthermore, this work needs to recognize and leverage existing networks, histories, cultures, and expertise found in those communities, taking an asset-based approach to design and implementation.

In this video, we describe the development of Digital Youth Network Caring Adult Network (DYD CAN), a series of workshops for parents and other caring adults implemented in conjunction with a 20-week computational making program for middle school girls. The workshops were designed by the Digital Youth Network (DYN) to foster a learning community of caring adults to further support the growing computational knowledge of girls in the program during and beyond their participation.

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Discussion from the 2017 STEM for All Video Showcase (11 posts)
  • Icon for: Laura Farrelly

    Laura Farrelly

    COO
    May 15, 2017 | 08:26 a.m.

    I like the focus of involving parents or other adult advocates - are you tracking any outcomes to see your impact or follow up with participants weeks/months later to see if they are continuing to use the concepts taught in the class?

  • Icon for: Sheena Erete

    Sheena Erete

    Co-Presenter
    Assistant Professor
    May 15, 2017 | 11:08 a.m.

    Great question, Laura! Yes, all the parents and caring adults who participate have children in our program so we follow up with them (or their children) at the end of the program to understand the additional opportunities they have connected with outside of our program. We also ask questions about the people that they stay in contact with outside of our program but we'd love to do a long-term study in the future to understand the impact of building a community of parents and caring adults over time.

  • Icon for: Laura Farrelly

    Laura Farrelly

    COO
    May 15, 2017 | 11:13 a.m.

    Thanks for the additional info - we provide students with access to diverse STEM video role models and include ongoing tips/info on how they can learn more about STEM careers - with our latest round of NSF funding we are adding more features into our product to support the adult advocates in these students' lives too. Best wishes for continued success with your project.

  • Icon for: Caitlin Martin

    Caitlin Martin

    Lead Presenter
    Senior Researcher
    May 15, 2017 | 11:58 a.m.

    Hi, Laura. A recent chapter describes some of the design-based work and research we engaged in around our first implementation of DYD CAN workshops, and as Sheena said, we are continuing to follow up with parents about their experiences. http://www.igi-global.com/chapter/connections-a.... This year we started some virtual ways to expand the conversation (like a Facebook group) that allows us to see how the group is sharing even after the workshops and program come to an end, and allows us to share some of our materials in virtual form for those parents who can not make it in person. We are beginning to look at these online sources of data as well. 

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Mary Dussault
  • Icon for: Mary Dussault

    Mary Dussault

    Researcher
    May 17, 2017 | 12:45 p.m.

    Thanks so much, Caitlin and Sheena, for your video and for posting the link to your recent chapter publication. Our YouthAstroNet project (http://stemforall2017.videohall.com/presentations/971) has parents and caregivers as a third intended audience to engage in our inclusive STEM learning community (in addition to our youth and their educators). We have not yet really been able to make much progress on this, other than caregiver participation in local capstone project events — so we have a lot to learn from your work! One of our challenges is that we are primarily working with our educators and youth remotely — via an online community and remote interactions — making it particularly difficult to reach out to parents. Given this, can you comment on your framework of roles to guide caregivers in supporting their youth’s STEM learning, and whether any of these roles might be transferable to an online learning environment?

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Elaina Boytor
  • Icon for: Caitlin Martin

    Caitlin Martin

    Lead Presenter
    Senior Researcher
    May 19, 2017 | 04:42 p.m.

    Hi, Mary. Thanks for your comment and for sharing your amazing video (the shout out to mom at the end sets the parent work up perfectly!). Your question about online interaction and engagement is such a great one. We have been thinking a lot about this too, given that families are so busy and not everyone can always come to our workshop sessions. A few things that may be of interest to you: (1) Inspired by Brigid Barron's work articulating parent roles in technology learning found in case studies of Silicon Valley youth (http://life-slc.org/docs/barron-parentsaslearni...), we adapted the work to look at adult mentors interactions with youth online (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1743...). We share these ideas with parents in workshops, supporting and reflecting on the roles parents play in on and offline interactions. For example, using online spaces to be an audience to work, to provide encouragement and prompt further thinking through comments or image-based reactions. (2) We are turning some of our workshops (which focus on individual roles from those frameworks) into online modules, using screen-capture, video, images, and voiceover (framing information and setting up related activities), delivering these modules through the space where they are already connected to each other (the parent program Facebook group) to share and discuss. 

  • Icon for: Jackie DeLisi

    Jackie DeLisi

    Facilitator
    Research Scientist
    May 17, 2017 | 11:53 a.m.

    I also love the focus on involving parents and having them understand more about their children's thinking. However, I often find that recruiting parents, getting their buy in, and collecting data from them can be challenging. Can you say more about how you encouraged and supported parent participation? 

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Mary Dussault
  • Icon for: Asia Roberson

    Asia Roberson

    Co-Presenter
    Digital Youth Divas Project Manager
    May 17, 2017 | 12:22 p.m.

    Great question Jackie. It's a team effort. We make phone calls, we set up a social media page and we send weekly emails to parents updating them on what their students are learning in class. We also find a teacher in the school who can champion our program and support our efforts to get parents involved. In our last iteration we encouraged parents to strengthen their relational web by giving them a chance to talk to each other about issues they are encountering around their students' involvement in STEAM programming. 

  • Icon for: Caitlin Martin

    Caitlin Martin

    Lead Presenter
    Senior Researcher
    May 17, 2017 | 12:29 p.m.

    It is a long game, for sure, and we certainly run into these same challenges. We envision it as building community with the entire network of caring adults, including parents, educators, and researchers. We start with email, paper-based invitations sent home with girls in the program, phone calls directly to families reminding them of events, and regular updates, photographs, and links in the private parent facebook group. Then during each event, starting with time for hanging out and meeting each other, sharing food (a lot of these ideas are really beautifully documented in Ricarose Roque's Family Creative Learning work: http://family.media.mit.edu/). Parent networks share information, and hopefully incentivize returning and spreading invitations/recommendations.

  • Icon for: Martin Storksdieck

    Martin Storksdieck

    Facilitator
    Director and Professor
    May 18, 2017 | 01:49 a.m.

    The video stresses the "family" learning aspect of the project (a fairly common concept that museums have long been using to design experiences), but you also do some design work. What have you learned about the kinds of STEM or STEAM activities that are appropriate to tackle together so that family learning can occur?

  • Icon for: Caitlin Martin

    Caitlin Martin

    Lead Presenter
    Senior Researcher
    May 22, 2017 | 12:52 p.m.

    Hi, Martin. Currently, our workshops with parents and other caring adults in their lives happen concurrently with the girls being in the program. So the girls are engaged in their regular program activities with their peers and adult mentors, while the parents are working together in a separate room. This approach is purposefully building a community of parents as these parents work together on STEM/STEAM activities (such as building an LED-embedded paper card) and other types of activities to support their daughters in STEM learning (such as using tech tools and discussions to find summer city programming in STEM that matches their needs and intentions). Girls and parents do come together after the sessions to do a cross showcase, where girls show adults what they have done and vice versa. Parents are also encouraged to continue these types of activities at home WITH their children, and we have discussions around how this is going, and sometimes seed project ideas and provide resources to take home.

  • Further posting is closed as the event has ended.