Connected Science Learning July-September 2019

Journal Article

I love data—especially when used to look at learning experiences and figure out what’s working, what isn’t, and what to do next. Not surprisingly, then, I’m quite excited about this issue of Connected Science Learning, which is all about Pr...

By Beth Murphy

Informal Education Assessment Professional Learning old Research STEM

Journal Article

Planning for Quality

Communities across the United States are working together to increase the quality and quantity of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning opportunities for all youth, with special emphasis on encouraging young people from ...

By Lydia Peabody, Rebecca K. Browne, Bailey Triggs, Patricia J. Allen, and Gil G. Noam

Informal Education Administration STEM

Journal Article

The Common Instrument Suite

The fundamental ideas in John Dewey’s 1913 essay, Interest and Effort in Education, are as true today as they were when he published it more than a century ago. His key point was that interest can motivate students to undertake efforts that may n...

By Cary Sneider and Gil G. Noam

Informal Education Administration Teacher Preparation

Journal Article

Teaching Environmental Awareness in Baltimore

A national movement, sparked by Richard Louv’s (2005) treatise Last Child in the Woods, has catalyzed collaborations among government agencies, schools, and nonprofit and community organizations to reconnect children with the environment. Research ...

By Sarah Haines, Chelsea McClure, and Symone Johnson

Middle School Informal Education Citizen Science Environmental Science Teacher Preparation

Journal Article

Formative Assessment of STEM Activities in Afterschool and Summer Programs

The positive impacts of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) afterschool and summer programs have been well documented and summarized in a number of review papers and books (e.g., Allen, Noam, and Little 2017; Krishnamurthi and Bevan 2...

By Cary Sneider and Sue Allen

Informal Education Assessment STEM

Journal Article

Team-Based Inquiry

Regardless of the setting in which learning takes place, identifying the goals and intended outcomes of an educational experience, then measuring how well that experience achieved them, is becoming more commonplace and is often essential. However, ...

By Sarah Cohn

Informal Education Administration Inquiry

Journal Article

Saturday Seminars for Urban Scholars Program

The K–16 academic journey to a career in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is often described as having serious barriers, such as uninspired teaching, an unwelcome environment, and poor math and science preparation that lea...

By Michele W. McColgan, Robert J. Colesante, Albert G. Andrade, and Kenneth Robin

Middle School Informal Education STEM

Journal Article

Evaluating Nature Museum Field Trip Workshops, an Out-of-School STEM Education Program

Out-of-school learning opportunities for students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) represent an important context in which students learn about and do STEM. Studies have shown that in- and out-of-school experiences work syn...

By Caroline Freitag, and Melissa Siska

Informal Education Administration STEM

Journal Article

Learning Design Experiments

Learning Design Experiments (LDEs), which take their name from design experiments in the learning sciences (Brown 1992), support educational innovation and progressive refinement of learning experiences by taking an evidence-centered design perspec...

By Peter Wardrip, Lisa Brahms, and Annie McNamara

Informal Education

Journal Article

Shared Measures for STEM and Science Learning Through the ActApp

Many formal and informal science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning programs want to understand the impact their work has on learner outcomes. This can be difficult, especially in informal settings (e.g., afterschool programs, museu...

By Matthew A. Cannady and Kalie Sacco

Informal Education