BC researchers receive NSF support to cultivate STEM interest among rural Navajo youth
A National Science Foundation grant designed to foster computational thinking and cultivate interest in STEM among rural Navajo youth and their educators has been awarded to Boston College in collaboration with Utah State University.
The three-year, $1,240,345 award will be shared between BC and the Logan, Utah-based USU, a public university in Northern Utah, whose academic roots are in rural education.
Leading the BC team, which includes undergraduate and graduate students, are Avneet Hira, the Sabet Family Dean’s Faculty Fellow and an assistant professor in the Engineering Department and Marina Bers, the Augustus Long Professor of Education in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development.
Kristin Searle, an associate professor in USU’s College of Education and Human Services, whose research focuses on broadening the STEM participation by females and minorities, with a focus on designing learning activities that align with participants’ gender and cultural identities, serves as USU’s principal investigator.
The initiative will be collaboratively undertaken by the Red Mesa Unified School District in the Navajo Nation, located in Arizona's Four Corners area, where the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah converge. Approximately 175,000 Navajo tribal members reside there.
Sabet Family Dean’s Faculty Fellow Avneet Hira (Lee Pellegrini)
“We will co-design and test a portable, cost-effective maker cart for early childhood education and an associated computing curriculum for use in rural and indigenous pre-K and kindergarten classrooms,” said Hira, who has a courtesy appointment in the Lynch School’s Teaching, Curriculum, and Society department. “It addresses the need for diverse approaches to making computing developmentally appropriate and culturally responsive and revitalizing for young children. I am grateful for our collaborations that made the conceptualizing of this work possible.”
A maker cart is a mobile resource station with tools, hardware, and building components for students of all abilities to create STEM-related projects. Designed to foster creativity and innovation with STEM concepts, the turnkey units could be used in classrooms, libraries, and community centers, and will be aligned with national and state curriculum standards.
Augustus Long Professor Marina Bers (Caitlin Cunningham)
“The carts’ design combines hands-on production activities commonly found in early childhood classrooms with tangible computing tasks, ensuring its cultural relevance and developmental appropriateness,” said Bers. “Coupled with an associated computing curriculum and teacher professional development, this initiative will serve as a model for designing tangible, age and culturally suitable computing experiences for young children.”
According to the researchers, students will engage in projects like creating their own interactive, traditionally linked weaving patterns using conductive Play-Doh, electronic textiles materials, LED lights, and micro-controllers. Simultaneously, they will be introduced to the types of jobs that require computing knowledge. Through this approach, young children will learn about cause and effect, patterns, and sequencing in a manner connected to culturally significant practices, such as Navajo rug weaving, while also being exposed to computing and engineering professions.
Research has demonstrated, the investigators note, the value of introducing computing education in early childhood for its cost-effectiveness and longer-lasting impacts compared to later interventions.
Using quantitative and qualitative approaches rooted in community-based and design-based research approaches, the team will investigate how to foster authentic school and community partnerships among university researchers, early childhood educators, children, and parents that support co-design of education programs. Secondly, they will probe how culturally responsive crafting practices — using maker carts with computer science activities — can foster computational thinking and career concepts among young Navajo and rural participants.
The project will initially reach nine early childhood educators and 100 Navajo children. In its final year, the project will engage an additional 20 early childhood educators and 20 preservice educators through professional development, extending the impact to several hundred additional Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in rural areas. The investigators will disseminate their outcomes and educational resources via teacher professional development workshops, conferences, and publications that reach researchers and educators.
The initiative will be advised by Valerie Shirley (Diné), an associate professor of Indigenous Education and director of the Indigenous Teacher Education Program at the University of Arizona; Angelina Castagno, chair in the Department of Educational Leadership, and past director of the Institute for Native-serving Educators and the Diné Institute for Navajo Nation Educators at Northern Arizona University; and Yasmin Kafai, the Michael Milken President’s Distinguished Professor of Learning Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.
The collaborative BC/USU program is funded by the NSF’s Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in STEM, and information and communication technology careers.