NSF Awards: 1744490
When the pandemic shut down plans for in-person meetings and STEM month events, the LiFE (Leadership and iSTEAM for Females in Elementary School) project that works with STEM clubs, especially for girls, in grades K-6 pivoted and had its New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) undergraduate STEM role models make videos and accompanying activity plans that participants could take part in from home. These ‘STEM in Your Home’ events are livestreamed and provide a hands-on learning experience to foster participation in STEM by sharing STEM experiences and virtual tours students and their families can enjoy at home. The demonstrations usually use materials commonly found at home so viewers can work along with us. During the livestream, students can ask questions of our team and learn about why they are pursuing STEM degrees. The videos and activities allow for engagement in hands-on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics discovery and fun. The project’s STEM for ALL video will showcase the project and several of the videos that have been presented. Among projects presented through STEM in Your Home are: a tandem jump with the US ARMY Golden Knights (gravity and air resistance), Chemistry in the Kitchen and Properties of Water. The videos and activity plans will be accessible through the NJIT STEM for Success website stemforsuccess.org.
Bruce Bukiet
Associate Dean and Professor
Hi,
Thanks for visiting the STEM in Your Home presentation. Our video presents how our STEM for Success initiative has adapted to engage students while at home during the pandemic. We think there are lessons to be gained as to the value of this work relevant for when life returns to normal. We'd love to know how you have engaged your audiences with respect to STEM during the pandemic and your thoughts on our work.
James Lipuma
Kyla Lannert
Cristo Leon
Aman Yadav
Professor
Looks like you have created a great set of resources for parents to engage kids in STEM learning at home and it is great that you are using undergraduate STEM majors as mentors. What kinds of data are you collecting to measure the impact of your work on K-6 girls?
James Lipuma
Cristo Leon
Bruce Bukiet
Associate Dean and Professor
Thanks for the kind words. You ask a great question. Right now the data on impact is really anecdotal -- we hear from partner teachers what their students think, or they send us pictures that the students' families send them of the child doing the project at home. We have also run focus groups for teachers to explore what worked and didn't and what aids they can use for online engagement. We'd love to hear any ideas you might have to gauge impact on students. Thanks so much.
James Lipuma
Cristo Leon
Cristo Leon
Director of research, College of Science and Liberal Arts
Hello All,
Thanks for visiting the STEM in Your Home presentation. Our video presents how our STEM for Success initiative has adapted to engage students while at home during the pandemic.
I am Cristo Leon, Director of Research for the College of Science and Liberal Arts. I will be more than happy to answer any possible questions you may have with regards to "compliance" and the "sponsored research administration" for the project.
Cristo Leon
Director of Research, CSLA
Office of Research & Development
leonc@njit.edu • (973) 596-6426
https://www.njit.edu/
James Lipuma
Cristo Leon
James Lipuma
Senior University Lecturer
As an outgrowth of our NSF INCLUDES DDLP (Design and Development Launch Pilot) the STEM for Success activities are still being co-designed with our stakeholders throughout New Jersey. We are eager to connect with more interested folks from across America and the world to help determine how we can grow our collection to best provide support for everyone interested in STEM. We hope by the end of the summer our team of high school interns with NJIT undergraduate and graduate student STEM role models will be able to create more resources to aid everyone to find the STEM in everything they do. The goal of STEM for success is to promote success through STEM for everyone.
If you have any ideas or would like to find ways we might collaborate, please let us know.
--Jim Lipuma
CLEAR - Collaborative for Leadership, Education, and Assessment Research
STEMforSuccess.org
Lipuma@njit.edu
James Lipuma
Cristo Leon
Jackie DoCampo
My students and I alive the STEM in Your Home. As always, the NJIT Team do a great job bringing interest and curiosity to everyone
James Lipuma
Cristo Leon
Cristo Leon
Director of research, College of Science and Liberal Arts
Dear Jackie,
Thanks a lot, we are happy to foster curiosity and discovery.
James Lipuma
Cristo Leon
NATHAN KIMBALL
Curriculum Developer
Hi, These are wonderful resources for learning in the home. The project information mentions that your are working with afterschool groups or STEM clubs for girls. What I would like to know more about is how these are facilitated. There is a mention of interns, but I wasn't sure if they led activities. Are the activities done synchronously with others? It would be great to know a bit more about the model of learning and how it might scale.
James Lipuma
Cristo Leon
James Lipuma
Senior University Lecturer
Dear Nathan,
Thank you for your interest.
Our initial project “Pre-pandemic” partner with five school districts to have live clubs facilitated in twelve schools overseen by school personnel. We supported those clubs with supplies, visits from role models and experts, professional development, and communal events like “PI-Day”.
Due to the “Pandemic”, all our live interactions (events, common planning time, visits to schools, field trips, and professional development) were halted. We worked to identify ways to serve all students and educators in early grades K-8 to access and learn STEM. This led to the activities moving fully online via YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg6S6ZdR9dgINx0fbP2S5Jg). Through a co-design process with our partner schools, we created the basics of the system and are about to launch a “Digital Repository”, showcase and student journal that is just coming online now.
Additionally, here are the answers to your specific questions:
Q1.- What I would like to know more about is how these are facilitated. There is a mention of interns, but I wasn't sure if they led activities. Are the activities done synchronously with others?
A.- Our remote presentations serve stakeholders in many different situations so we moved our efforts to be more within the normal school day. This allowed some teachers to have students participate live with parents and in some cases siblings to work on the activities. In other cases, the videos are reviewed and played later asynchronously either in the whole presentation or in the demonstration’s items separately.
We have undergraduate and graduate student workers and volunteers that serve as STEM role models. We also have local High School students who would normally have had internships on campus with departments but who joined us as STEM role models as well to learn about creating the learning objects for the younger students we serve.
Q2.- It would be great to know a bit more about the model of learning and how it might scale.
Our model is to move to video knowledge objects within larger digital learning objects (p. e. “STEM Digital Learning Objects: a survey”). Encased in YouTube live events coordinated with teachers and special events (p. e. “Women Changing the World with STEM”) this allows us to have an object that can be used on all modes of instruction.
We will be scaling this via the YouTube channel and a “Digital Repository” if you like to discuss more we will be happy to schedule a meeting.
--Jim Lipuma
CLEAR - Collaborative for Leadership, Education, and Assessment Research
STEMforSuccess.org
Lipuma@njit.edu
Kimberly Elliott
Cristo Leon
Leonard Koss
Very nicely presented and gives us an open mind on what can be accomplished when an idea crops up.
I wish the STEM project great success for the future!
Former Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Monash University, Clayton Victoria, Australia
Cristo Leon
James Lipuma
Cristo Leon
Director of research, College of Science and Liberal Arts
Dear Leonard,
Thank you
James Lipuma
James Lipuma
Senior University Lecturer
During the global pandemic, the ongoing demands of remote instruction post many problems for our educational partners, which our project works to address.
1.- What difficulties have you and your collaborators experienced in the transition to remote learning and collaboration?
2.- What was your experience during the global pandemic related to education?
3.- Traditionally underrepresented groups faced particular challenges whit STEM education, what problems have you identify?
4.- What solutions have been implemented, especially for Hands-on STEM?
--Jim Lipuma
CLEAR - Collaborative for Leadership, Education, and Assessment Research
STEMforSuccess.org
Lipuma@njit.edu
Cristo Leon
James Lipuma
Kip Rowan
Very exciting program!
Looking forward to more videos.
Cristo Leon
Cristo Leon
Director of research, College of Science and Liberal Arts
Dear Kip,
Thanks!
We will be sharing more videos soon
Chichi ofoma
Amazing work. Really cool initiative.
Bruce Bukiet
Cristo Leon
Cristo Leon
Director of research, College of Science and Liberal Arts
Dear Chichi Ofoma,
Thanks
Cristo Leon
Bruce Bukiet
Associate Dean and Professor
Thanks Chichi. We hope you are well. Good to hear from you.
Matt LaDue
I really liked your video. It seems like you've come up with a good way to keep students engaged virtually. I was just wondering how many students participate in your live streams or watch your videos?
Cristo Leon
Bruce Bukiet
Associate Dean and Professor
It is hard to know exactly how many people visit the livestream or watch afterwards. We know that some teachers have arranged to watch as a class and broadcast the livestream through the teacher at the school so while the numbers of view on youtube may be small (say 10-70 in many cases) the number of viewers may be somewhat larger. As we build the project and improve our outreach to make known that the events are coming, we expect these numbers to rise. It is great that these are now persistent learning objects so that if people cannot view at the "live" time they can view later.
Matt LaDue
Cristo Leon
David Lockett
Albert Einstein Fellow
Amazing project! I think using undergraduate STEM majors as mentors is a great approach! The mentoring model looks rewarding.
Kimberly Elliott
Cristo Leon
Cristo Leon
Director of research, College of Science and Liberal Arts
Dear David,
Thanks.
The mentoring model has been amazing and it has assisted us immensely in reaching out to highschools students, as the undergraduate students are a closer peer mentor to relate with.
David Lockett
Bridget Dalton Dalton
It is so important to have diverse mentors; thank you! Great example with the sugar!
Cristo Leon
Cristo Leon
Director of research, College of Science and Liberal Arts
Dear Bridget Dalton,
You are welcome in case you want to see videos with other STEM examples here is a list https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg6S6ZdR9dgINx0fbP2S5Jg/videos
Bridget Dalton Dalton
Thank you, Cristo, for sharing this link!
Cristo Leon
Cristo Leon
Director of research, College of Science and Liberal Arts
Dear Bridget,
You are welcome
Chanda-Louise Oton
This is exciting! Much needed resource.
Cristo Leon