Collaborative Research: Scaling and Expanding the STEM Career Connections Model to Prepare Rural Youth for the Technological Workforce

About This Grant

Collaborative researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, and Utah State University will scale and expand their prior NSF-funded research, STEM Career Connections, across three rural school districts. The project will increase rural middle and high school students' skills in technology and computing explicitly required for workforce-related technology and computing careers. Participating school districts are located in tourism-oriented, rural communities with large income disparities and a high percentage of economically-disadvantaged families. Students have limited exposure to information and communication technologies, internet access and bandwidth. Many communities have inadequate funding for technology infrastructure and have challenges in adapting technology to local community needs. Such challenges profoundly limit opportunities for students to develop relevant skills for lucrative technology and computationally-intensive STEM jobs and careers within their communities. Moreover, teacher training gaps exist in digital literacy, along with access to technology-enabled teaching resources. The project will provide courses for middle and high school students that will greatly expand students' proficiency in technology design, computer programming, and deploying sensor systems using core curricula aligned with national standards for computer and network technologies, sensor technologies, and big data. To address the shortage of STEM and technical career teaching and learning opportunities, the project will develop a community infrastructure of technology partnerships that will support students' access to STEM career pathways. Community partnerships, workplace apprenticeships, and mentoring by educators, community stakeholders, and local businesses, will broaden participation of students in STEM-related jobs and careers in technology and computing. The STEM Career Connections model employs research-based strategies for working with rural mountain communities. The instructional design will involve direct engagement of experts in curriculum co-design who will collaborate with researchers, teachers, and district leaders on curriculum development, development of mentorship materials, and STEM disciplinary support. The design-based research approach will employ quantitative and qualitative research methods that will address critical research questions to understand project impacts, including (1) how and to what extent the education activities implemented in collaboration with local partners are shown to be effective in supporting students' development of computing and STEM disciplinary knowledge and skills; (2) how and to what extent students will be able to apply their acquired disciplinary skills and understandings to scientific problem-solving; (3) to what extent will the project result in students' aspiration to pursue technology and computing jobs and careers; (4) how and in what ways does the partnership co-design process contribute to the success of the learning model within rural contexts, and inform a model of common characteristics for technology and computing education relevant and beneficial to other rural communities. Data sources will include surveys, observations of classrooms and partnership meetings, interviews with youth, teachers, and community members, student assessments, and analyses of student-created artifacts. Data analyses will examine students' evolving interest, awareness, and disciplinary knowledge. Analyses will inform practices for rural technology education; build knowledge on the common characteristics of rural mountain communities; and inform how local and regional partnerships can coordinate mutually beneficial interests to play an essential role in communities with limited access to technology and STEM-related technology jobs. Project evaluation will be conducted by Utah State University. This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.