The STEMCC Model
The STEMCC Model: At a Glance
The STEM Career Connections (STEMCC) project has worked to develop an innovative career readiness model for both in-school and out-of-school settings that will increase the knowledge of, and interest in, STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) and computing careers for middle school youth within rural communities who are often underserved in STEM fields.
There are three integral components of the STEMCC Model:
- STEM Community Partnership: Local community members with STEM related careers meet with youth, other advice on youth projects, and share career experiences.
- Technology Curricula: Youth in STEM classes, after school clubs, and summer camps investigate programmable sensor technologies and 3D printers to gain STEM skills and knowledge.
- Integrated Career Experiences: Youth explore career pathways and opportunities that are integrated into the STEM curricula using career connections activities and existing career readiness materials utilized by the school district.
The STEMCC Model: In Depth
The importance of Community Partnerships
Youth residing in rural areas often have fewer opportunities to engage with STEM learning during in-school and out-of-school-time (OST) contexts (Arnold et al., 2005; Saw & Agger, 2021). Youth persistence and continued engagement are common goals in STEM learning (Leos-Urbel, 2015). These goals can be challenging in rural settings (Saw & Agger, 2021) due to difficulty recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers, lack of funding to develop educational resources, and limited access to rich STEM programs (Johnson et al., 2021).
To address these specific problems, it is helpful to develop community STEM education partnerships (CSEPs) that work in a focused niche to offer solutions such as “educational tools, materials, and practical guidance” (Cohen & Mehta, 2017, p. 2). STEM learning interventions focusing on personal relevance help create meaningful connections between STEM learning experiences and youths’ lives in their school and community, especially for youth with low socioeconomic status and from underserved groups (Harackiewicz & Hulleman, 2010; Hulleman & Harackiewicz, 2009).
Anchoring learning in exploring phenomena and addressing locally relevant challenges enables youth to build interests from everyday experiences and explore how STEM contributes to their lives and community (Avery, 2013; Bhaduri et al., 2018; Bell et al., 2013). For instance, in our project, youth worked with the local community gardens, using sensor technology to study the garden's conditions and enable a better yield of fresh produce for the community. According to Bartko (2005),
“youth who are committed to and highly active in an endeavor are more likely to continue in that endeavor, [and] see it as part of their identity.”
The importance of Technology Curricula
The STEM technology curriculum is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. It uses an instructional design called storylining, where students’ questions about local phenomena and problems drive the lessons in ways that promote coherence, relevance, and meaning (Reiser et al., 2015; Shelton, 2015).
A coherent storyline helps students make sense of the phenomena or problems they are investigating (Reiser et al., 2015; Schwarz et al., 2017). The goal is to ensure that students are drivers of the inquiry process rather than simply learners of STEM (Penuel, 2016).
Two main STEM focused storylines have been used in the STEM Career Connections project:
- The Sensor Immersion unit. Youth develop computational thinking skills and an understanding of sensors as data collection tools. They generate questions about a classroom environmental data display built using programmable sensors and investigate how sensors work, how data moves within the system, and how to collect and communicate information. Youth ultimately design data displays to address locally relevant problems based on their interests.
- The 3D printing unit. Youth develop spatial thinking skills and an understanding of 3D printing and 3D modeling. They complete a design challenge to create prosthetic limb(s) for animals using 3D printing, 3D modeling, and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies. Youth consider the criteria and constraints for their prosthetic design based on the needs of the animal and they engage in the engineering design process to apply 3D printing technologies to real-world problems.
The importance of Integrated Career Experiences
Connections to STEM careers were integrated into the technology curriculum, including STEM mentoring experiences for youth. The STEM career activities involved researching STEM careers that connect to the technology curriculum and youth interest. The mentors provided first-hand exposure to STEM careers within the community and guidance during youth project design.
Mentoring
Mentoring can be described as a relationship (either formal or informal) between a more experienced person (i.e., a mentor) and a less-experienced person (a mentee). A mentor relationship can provide opportunities for professional or personal growth and development (Hernandez et al., 2017).
Examples of local problems that youth addressed with guidance from their mentors include:
- Designing a sensor system to help predict wildfires
- Helping individuals with hearing disabilities to detect voices
- Creating a smart garden that uses sensors to monitor the environment
- 3D printing prosthetics for disabled animals
- Solving a local bridge-building problem with 3D printing
Career Connections Curricula
We developed a set of independent career connections activities and resources to integrate coherently into the technology curricula and pair with the mentoring experiences. These lessons provided youth opportunities to explore and collaboratively define/answer “What is STEM?” and “Where is STEM in my community?” Youth identify their own career interests and develop a better understanding of how STEM relates to their lives, family, and community.
The STEMCC Model: Big Picture
The STEMCC Model works on two levels – a STEM ecosystem level and a STEM landscape level. The STEM ecosystem encompasses interdependent relationships and complex interactions between several components of the STEM field. It often includes scaffolds to help individuals and organizations in STEM succeed, such as mentorship programs. Grounding science and engineering design challenges within a local STEM ecosystem can empower underserved youth to develop their narratives and understandings of their local communities (Taylor & Hall, 2013). Similarly, attending to local knowledge enables youth to see connections between emerging technologies and their local spaces, including the cultural capital they already possess (Zwiers, 2007).
Local STEM Ecosystem, adapted from Brofenbrenner, 1995
The STEM landscape, on the other hand, refers to the broader context within which STEM operates. It may include the political, economic, and cultural factors that determine the development and growth of STEM. It also involves partners within the field and the resources they have to offer.
We see that both a STEM ecosystem and a STEM landscape perspective are essential for understanding how STEM pathways are created and sustained at the partner level (STEM Ecosystem) and how youth and parents navigate these STEM pathways from the youth perspective (STEM Landscape). The STEMCC Model is designed to support the development of STEM opportunities, and access to those opportunities, for youth in the community and to help them develop a deeper understanding of STEM and STEM careers in their community.
When engaging with STEM curricula and integrated career experiences, youth learn new technologies, investigate STEM careers related to those technologies, and meet with STEM mentors throughout the process. In our project, youth brainstormed how to use technology to help them solve locally relevant problems, such as: creating an early warning system to detect wildfires, designing a footbridge for a local trail system, creating a wildlife fence system, and designing a system to find someone who is lost in the wilderness or an avalanche.
At the same time, the community STEM education partnership (CSEP) brings together stakeholders from the community to work toward identifying and developing STEM pathways. This partnership allows exploring how the larger STEM ecosystem can frame youth and families’ perception of pathways created at the STEM landscape level.
It is natural for CSEPs to evolve. Based on the Partnership Typology (see figure below) from Noam &Tillinger, the earliest work with community partners fit the opportunity-based classification. Over time, the partnership group we have convened is slowly becoming collaborative, especially as we begin co-developing activities and products (i.e., community asset maps and example STEM career pathways). Our CSEP has evolved to have local STEM leaders who now assist in planning and facilitating meetings more actively.
Partnership Typology (Allen et al., 2020; Noam & Tillinger, 2004)
Developing community partnerships takes time and sustained effort. Stakeholders must see value in the partnership and the resulting STEM pathway opportunities to commit (Coburn et al., 2013), and your team will have to invest in making the relationships mutually beneficial. The partnership provides access to the local resources to identify and develop the STEM ecosystem and, eventually, the STEM landscape for the future generation of youth in the community. Ultimately, when the partnership matures into a robust collaborative that actively creates and supports youth opportunities, it will be worth all the time and effort your team puts forth.