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Sharon, we are funded by an NSF INCLUDES planning grant. Thanks for watching!

Thank you for that information. I am working with the middle and high schools and have been asked to look into working with the elementary schools. Your project gives me some good ideas to work on and my current NSF grant only support as young as middle school.

Sharon, hopefully, we will be sharing more about this project at the upcoming NABT Conference in Atlanta! We should catch up there!

Thanks for your question, Jennifer! The undergraduate mentors are trained and learn best practices from faculty involved in the course (lead by Dr. Marty Harvill) at the beginning of the semester. We are in the process of creating and unifying instructional training materials to provide to all undergraduate mentors as we continue to grow and expand the iBEARS Network. 

Pat,

Thanks for stopping by and commenting on our video! We had not used the scientist spotlights at this point, but being familiar with Jeff and Kimberley's work, that would add some interesting aspects to the project. Our external evaluator is Dr. Cody Williams who works for SAMPI at Western Michigan. Our evaluation plan is as follows: 

Evaluation Questions

Measured Benchmarks of Accomplishment

Data Collection Procedures

1. What was the extent, nature, and quality of program events and activities (QUBEShub resource sharing website, recruitment of iBEARS participants, workshop, dissemination efforts)?

- QUBEShub site implemented as planned;

- Participant recruitment goals met

- Workshop experience implemented as planned

- iBEARS program succesfull disseminated through practioner publications, web resources, etc.

- Review program materials

- Review recruitment activities and records

- Document program activities and participation

- Observe select program activities

-Project leadership interviews

-Document and review dissemination efforts

2. How have iBEARS participants been affected by the project resources and workshop (understanding of iBEARS model and buy-in, development of new iBEARS programs)? 

- Participants actively using QUVBEShub site to access/share resources

-Participants develop understanding of the iBEARS program and engage in developing their own program.

-End-of-workshop questionnaire

-Document participant use of project resources and participation in programming.

- Interviews project leadership

- Observe select program activities

3. What progress has was made toward the development of a full NSF INCLUDES Alliance proposal? What are the key elements for the evaluation of the full proposed INCLUDES Alliance project?

-Strengths/limitations of iBEARS model identified and used by staff for improvement

-Full INCLUDES Alliance Proposal developed including an appropriate evaluation plan

- Document and review program activities, resources, and products

- Interview project leadership

- Regular meetings with project staff to discuss strengths, challenges, and lessons learned

- Evaluator participation in project workshop and INCLUDES Alliance grant writing team.

Jay,

Thanks for stopping by and watching our video. I will let Marty take on the first question you asked as he is the one who has worked on this project since the very beginning. I started working on the project in the fall of 2018 so we have not yet had a chance to see if any of those students will pursue STEM in college as the oldest ones are currently in High School. To my knowledge, our biggest gain is an increased interest in teaching science at the K-12 level. It is our intention as we grow iBEARS to have students participate in iBEARS from 4th through 8th grade and even potentially high school if all goes well. The importance of sustained exposure to maintain interest has been discussed by others and guides our plan for sustainability and increasing impact. We see this as a very important broader impact of the iBEARS network and is one of the primary reasons we have Dr. Matthew Hora (a STEM workforce development researcher) on our advisory board.

iBEARS was virtual from the beginning. We have always thought about scalability and how we can make this model easy to implement and portable (we are currently working with a class in Belize, beginning a collaboration in D.C., and hopefully soon at least one in Little Rock in addition to the classes we work within central Texas). Some of the advantages to virtual mentoring are reaching remote school districts that are often far away from a university and would not otherwise have the opportunity to participate (we are currently exploring a collaboration with a village in rural Alaska). I am happy to expand more upon this point if folks are interested. I would highly encourage folks who are interested in participating in the program to email me for further discussion (memoore5@ualr.edu) or our PI Dr. Tracey Sulak (Tracey_Sulak@baylor.edu).

Jay,

Transform traditional science labs into authentic, discovery-based science labs, especially in introductory courses has been almost exclusively been Biology.  We have seen other departments increasing in undergraduate research, but not in course base research format.

Pat,

Thank you for your comment! Yes, these would be great synergies. As Baylor College of Medicine is a separate institution from Baylor University, we had not yet thought of looping them in, but it sounds like it might be worthwhile. We appreciate your suggestions and insights!

Judy,

Thank you for your comment. While the training is not different, we work closely with their teachers to understand what concepts they are working on and try to think of ways that those concepts may be worked into the projects. A great example of how this happened was 4th-grade students trying to quantify mold growth coverage using a grid. On their own, the 4th-grade students thought of how to use the fractions they had been learning about to describe partial grid square coverage. There are many more examples like this that worked so much better than we could have hoped for. It is really a fun project to work on.

What assessment tools and instruments did you use?  This is a great project to share with the broader STEM community!

We are using a variety of assessment tools, including some from the INCLUDES network site. Quantitative measures,  like the STEBI (not for 21st century skills), show some improvement, but to  measure the 21st century skills adequately, we rely on weekly video reflections, analysis of the weekly taped videos with the class, and pre/post interviews. We have used the expectancy value theory from Eccles and Wigfield to understand why students choose to enter this program during their undergraduate years. Measuring 21st century skills is a challenge, but we have some scales from the OECD and PIAAC that are psychometrically adequate if not comprehensive. Other team members are welcomed to jump in and add to this!!