Mastery in Out-of-School-Time (MOST): Documenting STEM Learning to Expand Educational Pathways
The importance of informal education has been a topic of discussion for some time. The usual ways of pursuing higher education tend to focus on measuring learning through formal means, such as GPAs and standardized tests. However, there has been little discussion on how to measure STEM education that takes place outside of school, i.e., out-of-school time (OST) learning, and how that information can be used for college admission. To tackle this issue, our team is working on a project funded by the NSF, where we conduct semi-structured individual interviews and focus groups with youth, parents, OST providers, and college admission personnel. This project is a design study in which we use the insights gained from these conversations to inform our prototypes of MOST learning records. Our ultimate objective is to identify key components for designing learning records catering to diverse OST STEM learning. Below are the four research questions guiding our project.
- RQ1: How and why do youth and families from minoritized communities understand and choose to participate in STEM OST learning opportunities?
- RQ2: How do youth understand and interact with STEM OST learning opportunities?
- RQ3: How do OST providers characterize the STEM learning goals in the activities they provide?
- RQ4: How do college admissions personnel view the role of informal STEM learning as part of a holistic admission process?
My role
As a Postdoctoral Researcher, my main responsibility is to oversee the MOST project. This project involves three institutions in the United States and a nonprofit organization. As the lead for data collection and analysis, I have collaborated with faculty, students, nonprofit practitioners, and community partners. Together, we have evaluated OST STEM programming for teens and identified program outcomes in three selected research sites. During the analysis process, I have assisted our graduate research assistants to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Additionally, I have played a vital role in facilitating communication across the three sites to gather ideas and feedback from team members while building prototypes through Figma for our learning records.
Featured skills
- Interviewing
- Focus Groups
- Qualitative Analysis
- Prototyping
- Wireframing
- Publication Writing
- Mentoring
- Team Leadership
- Project Management
Software
- Dedoose
- Figma
- Google Jamboard
- Google Surveys
- Zoom
- Microsoft Office Suite
This is the first prototype I built using Balsamiq for one of the three OST venues to capture information of interest from the perspective of OST providers.
This is the second prototype I built using Figma for the same OST venue to capture information of interest from the perspective of OST providers.
This is another prototype I built using Figma for the same OST venue to capture information of interest from the perspective of parents.
Publications
- Jones, D., Lee, L., Lee, J., Samuelson, A., Cederquist, S., Herrenkohl, L., Fishman, B., Pinkard, N., Taylor, K., Majors, Y. (2023). Documenting what matters MOST: Expanding STEM pathways for underrepresented youth through an out-of-school time learning system. AERA 2023 Annual Meeting Proceedings.
- Fishman, B., Herrenkohl, L., Pinkard, N., Taylor, K., Cardella, L., Cederquist, S., Gu, X., Jones, D., Lee, J., Lee, L., Majors, Y., & Samuelson, A. (2023). Documenting out-of-school time learning: Opportunities, tensions, and a prototype. ISLS Annual Meeting 2023 Proceedings.
- Fishman, B., Herrenkohl, L., Pinkard, N., Taylor, K., Cederquist, S., Gu, X., Jones, D., Lee, J., Lee, L., Majors, Y., Reid, C., Samuelson, A., Henriquez, A., Penuel, W., & Peppler, K. (2023). Out-of-school time: Divergent learning, divergent opportunities. ISLS Annual Meeting 2023 Proceedings.
- Lee, L., Jones, D., Cederquist, S., Gu, X., Fishman, B., & Herrenkohl, L. (2023). Exploring physicality in out-of-school time learning. ISLS Annual Meeting 2023 Proceedings.
This submission, Exploring physicality in out-of-school time learning, was presented as a poster at ISLS 2023 in Montreal, Canada.
This submission, Documenting out-of-school time learning: Opportunities, tensions, and a prototype, was another poster presented at ISLS 2023 in Montreal, Canada.