Boosting Scientific Literacy and Interest Among Underprivileged Middle School Students Using Experiential Learning Theory And

College Volunteers

Vineet Agrawal, Ahrash N. Bissell, William L. Hwang, Daniel M. Kaplan, Jessica E. Manson, Matthew K. Mian

2006 Scholarship of Teaching & Learning FaireWestern Carolina University

February 23, 2006

InnoWorks

Overview• What is InnoWorks?

– Motivation and rationale– Goals– Program development and structure

• Evaluating InnoWorks– Student interest in science and learning gains– Mentor training and gains– LSI and ELT as guide for program structure and

mentor strategies

• Future Outlook

Mission Statement

Design and implement innovative workshops and programs in science and engineering for students from

underprivileged backgrounds.

What is InnoWorks?

• Student-founded and led 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization

• Completed two successful years and exciting outlook for future

• Current chapters: Duke, UMCP

• 2006 chapters: Georgetown, UPenn

• Global interest: England, Saudi Arabia, India

Goals• Establish links between classroom science

and engineering and the real world through fun, engaging activities

• Encourage students to consider science and engineering as potential career paths

• Foster teamwork and development of strong work ethic

• Provide positive role models and develop lasting relationships

Target group• Middle school students (11-14

yrs)

– Enough maturity, yet still impressionable

• Students from underprivileged backgrounds

– Unable to afford science camps, and may grow up in environments that lack academic role models

Student Nominations

• Recommendations by principals, counselors, teachers, and community leaders

• Student interest in science/engineering but lack of opportunities

CBS (WRAL 5)

Motivation

• US is falling behind in STEM education

• Low high school graduation rates—particularly for minorities

• “Achievement gap” shown to widen with age

Potential Impact• Mentoring shown to be effective for inspiring

students to succeed in and out of the classroom

• Increasing and helping to sustain enthusiasm for science

• Contributing research and data to broader educational community

• Offering a model for supplemental-education and service-learning programs

Program Structure

• Free week-long program (includes food, transportation, prizes, t-shirts, etc.)

• Morning presentation followed by hands-on activities and competitive missions

• Students work in teams of 3-4, each mentored by 1-2 college students

Structure Cont’d

• Missions involve design and experimentation to solve real-world problems

• Students formally present their solutions• Teams rewarded for teamwork and success in

missions• Curriculum designed to be flexible and modular

Students as Mentors

• College students with a passion for sharing interests & knowledge

• Age and experience make them ideal role models

• Offers college students a meaningful role in community outreach

A Novel Approach To Mentoring & Learning

• D. A. Kolb’s “experiential learning cycle”– Four essential learning processes: concrete experience,

reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation

• J. Zull: learning cycle reflected in physical structure of brain

• Our goal: Engage all stages of the learning cycle

• Program activities are designed from the ground up with these educational principles in mind

• Reflective questions after each mission => metacognition

InnoWorks 2005: Making Sense of Senses

44 participants at Duke, 32 at UMD

InnoWorks 2005: Making Sense of Senses

• Theme: Human senses

• Curriculum, mentoring methods, research, and program logistics published in two books

…and the future:

InnoWorks 2006 entitled “Explorations” – students will explore the oceans, outer space, the rainforest, and more!

Duke News & Communication

Program Outcomes• Was the InnoWorks program successful?

• Our data suggest that InnoWorks was an enormous success– Student responses– Mentor responses– Family responses– Community responses– Sponsor responses

Program Evaluation• Many different approaches to evaluating and

improving program

• We are sharing student and mentor gains as overall assessments of the program

• We also selected one particular area of research we incorporated into the program this past year, related to learning styles

Student Gains• Pre- and post- surveys were electronically

administered on the first and last days of the camp, respectively

• Data collected and compiled were based on responses of 60 students (31 females, 29 males)

• Students were asked to be completely honest, and they were assured there would be no repercussions for negative responses

Student Demographics

• 80% of the students were middle school students

65.00%6.67%

10.00%

8.33%

10.00%African American

Other

Caucasian

Asian/PacificIslander

Bi-racial

Student Pre-Survey

01

16

2122

0

5

10

15

20

25

Nu

mb

er

of

Stu

de

nts

Not At AllInterested

PerhapsInterested

SomewhatInterested

ReasonablyInterested

Very Interested

Interest Level

“How interested are you in science?”

Student Pre-Survey

0

5

8

20

27

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Nu

mb

er

of

Stu

de

nts

Not at All Perhaps Important Sort of Important ReasonablyImportant

Very Important

Importance Rating

“How important will science be in your future?”

• 24 students indicated interest in a scientific career

Student Pre-Survey

0 0

9

2625

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Nu

mb

er

of

Stu

de

nts

None A little Average A Lot My Best

Effort Rating

“How hard do you try in school?”

Student Feedback• 55/60 students stated they understood science

better as a result of InnoWorks

• 51/60 students stated they were more interested in learning science after InnoWorks

• 90% would recommend InnoWorks to a friend

• Over 94% of the students would participate in InnoWorks again

• Of the 22 that reported “Very Interested” in science, all but one were even more interested in learning science afterwards

Student Feedback• 52/60 students feel better about being able to

learn science as a result of InnoWorks

• 51/60 students stated they learned some things in this program that they can use in a science class in school in the future

• 50/60 students were now more aware of the importance of science in everyday life as a result of InnoWorks

• 54/60 students told their family/friends what they did in the program

Student Reflections

Duke Breakdown

Mentors Staff Students

UMCP Breakdown

Mentors Staff Students

• Duke– 12 mentors– 18 staff– 44 students

• Maryland– 14 mentors– 20 staff– 32 students

Staff-Student Composition

Duke Breakdown

Mentors Staff Students

UMCP Breakdown

Mentors Staff Students

• Mentors preferred the two-mentor model

• Division of labor– Disciplinarian– Teacher

• Closer guidance• Idleness a potential

drawback

Number of Mentors Matters

“. . . by having Duke students as mentors, the students received the information in a much more relaxed setting among people they could consider as role models, peers, and friends.” – Jessica Manson (Duke)

Quotations

“Almost as a rule for these three students, the more that they could see practical applications to an activity or mission, the more they enjoyed it.” – Amit Patel (Duke and Maryland)

Quotations

“It’s really heartwarming to see kids respond to the program and I feel that that’s why we exist. Overall, mentoring was a great experience and one that I would recommend to others.” – Bilal Aijazi (Maryland)

Quotations

• The structure of InnoWorks helped to keep students motivated and excited

• Their leadership skills and their abilities to comprehend and apply science-related knowledge improved

• Room for improvement in mentor training; many felt under-prepared for their duties

Exit Survey Results(for mentors)

• Recent advances in brain sciences are informing our understanding of how people learn

• Synthesis of neurobiology, cognitive science, and educational theory: Dr. James Zull of Case Western Reserve University

• Interesting parallels between one of the most widely used and tested learning-styles inventories (Kolb’s LSI) and the physical and functional structure of the brain

Learning-Styles Theory

• Four stages of Kolb’s learning cycle

– Concrete Experience

– Reflective Observation

– Abstract Conceptualization

– Active Experimentation

Learning-Styles Theory

Learning-Styles Theory

Sensory Cortex

Frontal Integrative

Cortex Back Integrative

Cortex

Motor Cortex

Concrete Experience

Reflective Observation

Abstract Hypotheses

Active Testing ACCOMODATOR

DIVERGERASSIMILATOR

CONVERGER

• InnoWorks is designed to try and exploit every stage in the learning cycle

• Provides a different way of thinking about the value of certain program elements than most programs of this type

– Emphasis is not simply on doing cool, attention-grabbing things

– While “cool” factor was definitely there, intent was to provide concrete experiences from which to engage students in rest of the cycle

Impact on InnoWorks

• Administered LSI on first and last days of program

• In theory, we can measure whether students evolved in terms of their learning preferences by measuring shifts in LSI scores

• Since InnoWorks is intended to encourage all stages of learning, we would not necessarily predict a shift in any particular direction

• We are only presenting a partial analysis here

Kolb’s LSI

• Four calculated scores

• MATLAB script to compute and produce “kite plot”

Kolb’s LSI

• 33 of 60 students exhibited a change in preferred learning style

• Converger category transitioned from having fewest (9) to most (19) students, whereas all other categories had decreases

Converger Shift

• Possible interpretations of “converger shift”

– Science and engineering in general tend to emphasize converging stage; perhaps any enjoyable science learning experience disposes participants toward preferring this quadrant?

– Perhaps program didn’t emphasize all stages of learning cycle equally? The converging stage may have been emphasized more, so students, through their enjoyment the camp, now feel they prefer that stage of the cycle?

Converger Shift

• Possible interpretations of “converger shift”

– Perhaps the students were particularly encouraged to use converging stage by mentors? Most mentors and curriculum developers were convergers.

Converger Shift

• Average self-reported effort made by students to understand science at InnoWorks

– 4.63/5.00 for shift in learning preference

– 4.31/5.00 for no shift in learning preference

• Paired T-test, p = 0.070

• Result suggests that changes in LSI scores may reflect engagement with InnoWorks program, as opposed to random changes over time or better understanding of survey

Student Effort & LSI Shifts

1. Does the LSI have predictive value in the InnoWorks setting?

2. Does the preferred learning styles of mentors and students have any correlation with mentor effectiveness?

3. Are group dynamics correlated with team learning style composition?

LSI Research Questions

• All mentors that addressed this question found that there was significant correlation between student behaviors and the LSI results for most students

“For each of the members of our team, it was striking how well the pre-camp LSI agreed with our first impressions, and to some extent the changes between the first and second LSI

measurements were also in accordance with our observations throughout the weeks.” (Lisa Richards, Duke)

Predictive Value

• For students that changed their learning style, mentors often found that results of second LSI were more accurate

• Some changes in LSI were not so much the result of actual changes in learning style but in the students’ understanding of how they like to learn

• Most students could roughly evaluate their own learning preferences

Clarifying Learning Styles

• Most mentors found it much easier to mentor students with similar learning styles to themselves

• Teams that had two mentors: each mentor found that they were most compatible with students in their group with similar learning styles

“The way a mentor learns could affect the interaction between mentor and student. For example, I am an assimilator. I tend

to work better with Ashley and Amanda, whose kite is more similar to mine than that of the other two. However, Sharad is a converger/accommodator. He was much more capable at getting Cydney and Kenneth interested in the projects than I was. However, he did not connect with Amanda or Ashley.” (Nita Amornsiripanitch, Duke)

Impact of Mentor LS

• One mentor with perfectly symmetrical LSI kite plot could relate to and motivate all students easily

• Numerous other factors that play a role in mentor-student interactions (e.g., background, gender, personality)

Impact of Mentor LS

• Little agreement between mentors on if and how learning styles of students had an effect on group dynamics

• Similar learning styles: team members could relate better, help each other, same difficulties

• Different learning styles: better distribution of tasks

• Some groups had clear cooperative grouping based on learning styles

Group Dynamics

• Ultimate goal: knowledge and methods from cognitive neuroscience can lead to effective techniques of providing insight into how to help a student learn most effectively

• Well-trained mentors can strengthen learning abilities and confidence of students by using latter’s learning strengths to address their learning weaknesses

Future LSI Research

• Continue administering and analyzing LSI

• Discussion of LSI results with students during program (encourage metacognitive development)

• Significant movement towards converger category is interesting and should be explored further

• More generally, how can LS theory and metacognitive development be incorporated into educational design and goals?

Future LSI Research

• Long-term research program that would track ongoing development and retention of student development (e.g., grades, webforum, events involving mentors and students, etc.)

Future LSI Research

• We hope to be able to help participants effectively transfer their new learning tools and dispositions to the school environment and lives in general

• Expansion on a national and international level

Future of InnoWorks

• Development of “ready-to-go” kits

• Training materials

• New curricula (e.g., Explorations)

• Integrating InnoWorks into service-learning, K-12 education, and/or community outreach offices in universities

• Service-learning courses for mentoring training and teaching credit

Future of InnoWorks

• Two-tier organizational structure

• National office for support

• Local chapters– Communicate with national staff on needs and

progress

– Write proposals and raise funding at local level

– Recruit and organize staff and mentors

– Obtain and transport students to and from program

– Work with local schools

– Arrange necessary facilities equipment

– Develop portions of new curricula

Future of InnoWorks

• InnoWorks is new paradigm in grade-school science education and outreach

– Use of undergraduate student volunteers as mentors

– Incorporation of best theories in the educational research literature to guide overall structure and purpose of learning environment

– Strong program materials and staff dedication

Summary

InnoWorksBy Students, For Students

Special thanks to:• Prof. Gary Ybarra• Paul Klenk• Dean Kristina

Johnson• Dr. William McNairy• Dr. Annette Golonka• Dr. Chris Clarke• Kip Coonley• Linda Broughton• Beth Barak• Edward Paradise• Joe Freddoso• Shelvette Adderly• Prof. David Kolb• Dr. Alice Kolb

• Billie Wilson• Mary Linda Andrews• Elaine Rothbauer• Prof. Jeffrey Forbes• Dr. Vickie Knight• Terry Corliss• Prof. Rhett George• Prof. Lisa Huettel• Rebecca Small• Amy Hogaboom• David Stein• Dean Linda Franzoni• Dean Connie

Simmons• Michelle Tabares

• Cindy Cheamitru• Mark Galiano• Prof. Nannerl

Keohane• Prof. Ian Baucom• Li-Min Lee

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