Deepening and Expanding a Research-Practice Collaborative to Identify Synergistic Research on Informal Emerging Technology Learning in Counterspaces

Caregivers play an essential role in STEM identity development, interest, and persistence; however, more research is needed to deepen our understanding of multigenerational informal STEM learning and informal STEM learning alongside caregivers. This Partnership Development and Planning project brings together STEM educational researchers, STEM professionals, community organizers, and caregivers. Together they will work toward research that explores rightful presence for Black girls and their caregivers in the context of multigenerational informal STEM learning, particularly around emerging technologies. Educational researchers, from Old Dominion University and Indiana University-Indianapolis will deepen and extend an existing research-practice partnership to include Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), STEM professionals, and caregivers. Butterfly Village (Hampton Road, VA) and Girls STEM Institute (Indianapolis, IN) are CBOs that offer holistic programming intentionally designed to support Black girls' intersectional identities. These CBOs engage Black girls in the relevancy of STEM knowledge and skills and emphasize the importance of real-world applications via Connected Learning Theory. Both CBOs provide counterspaces—spaces that foster community and are created by and for people who experience oppression. In these counterspaces girls voluntarily work on collaborative projects, join in group discussions, and engage in STEM learning through social interaction. As community organizers, a future goal for these CBOs is to support the utilization of emerging technologies (e.g., AI, data science, cybersecurity) to connect learning activities to real issues. Based on this goal, STEM professionals from local organizations—Drone Force Indiana and Virginia Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation Center—with expertise in digital transformation technologies join this partnership to ensure their needs and perspectives are included in the framing of the future research project. Both CBOs were intentionally designed for the girl participants and are redesigning after noting the interest in STEM learning experiences among caregivers (via observations and direct feedback). By establishing a research-practice collaborative all partners will share in contributing to the framing of their future work together, including research questions, learning design, methodology design, intended goals, and outcomes of future multigenerational informal STEM counterspaces. Partnership development processes are grounded in two theoretical frameworks: Rightful Presence and Community Cultural Wealth. The tenets of rightful presence will support partners in developing trust where each recognizes differences in cultural backgrounds, race, and power while also acknowledging possible tensions that may arise due to these differences. Using the Community Cultural Wealth framework, partners will explore the various forms of capital brought to the research practice collaborative, such aspirational capital where the collaborative envisions what this partnership can accomplish together for the future of Black girls and their caregivers. Key activities grounded in these frameworks include sharing personal perspectives and cultural artifacts while developing shared norms for working together; mind mapping and visualizing to identify goals, areas for collaboration, and milestones; meeting co-design and consensus building; roundtable discussions, feedback, and reflections; and closing commitment circles to commit to next steps, roles, and collaboration activities. Through these activities, the team will answer preliminary questions such as: How can a partnership between caregivers, community spaces, STEM experts, and researchers be effectively established? What are the barriers and facilitators to collaboration between partners? How can a research practice collaborative in partnership with researchers, caregivers, community members, and STEM professionals design a study of informal STEM learning spaces that facilitate positive change for Black girls and their caregivers? Culturally Responsive Evaluation will provide formative feedback on processes, strategy, and honoring of each partners’ community, capital, and perspectives. Summative evaluation will emerge though co-facilitated visioning sessions to establish anticipated and unanticipated outcomes of the partnership processes that will be shared with the broader informal STEM learning field. This Partnership Development and Planning project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences. 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.