Driving Diversity in STEAM via University & High School Collaboration

Outline

Empowering STEM Education through Robotics: A High School-University Partnership

1. Welcome and Introduction (5 minutes)

- Content:
- Introduce presenters: Andrew Schuetze, Lutheran High School, and Dr. Lucretia Fraga, University of the Incarnate Word (UIW).
- Overview of the session: Focus on the collaboration between a high school and a university, STEM initiatives, and student empowerment.
- Brief introduction to FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) and FIRST Access programs.

- Engagement:
- Audience poll: "Who here works with robotics or educational technology in their schools?"
- Quick introduction to ISTE Standards and Transformative Learning Principles addressed in the session.

2. The Power of Partnership (10 minutes)

- Content
- Describe the high school-university collaboration, including the roles of Lutheran High and UIW pre-service teachers in the robotics programs.
- Focus on the "No Boys Allowed" girls’ team and two boys’ teams, showing how they work with pre-service teachers.
- Share stories of real-world engagement, like university students volunteering as referees and judges at FTC events.

- Engagement:
- Q&A: How can partnerships with local institutions enhance STEM programs in high schools?
- Show podcasts created by Dr. Fraga's UIW pre-service teachers, reflecting on their experiences.

3. Transformative Learning in Action (15 minutes)

- Content:
- Experiential Learning: Explain how hands-on experiences like mentoring FIRST robotics teams and volunteering at competitions lead to real-world learning for both high school and university students.
- Critical Reflection: Showcase mock judging feedback and student-created podcasts with interviews of students, parents, and volunteers.
- Collaborative Engagement: Discuss how the partnership fosters teamwork and inclusivity within the robotics teams and with community stakeholders.

- Engagement:
- Group Activity: Reflective practice simulation. Participants will role-play mentoring sessions between pre-service teachers and robotics teams.
- Share personal reflections on how experiential learning and collaboration transformed students' learning.

4. Exploring Robotics: A FIRST Tech Challenge Overview (10 minutes)

- Content:
- Play a FIRST Tech Challenge game animation video showcasing a recent game to provide context.
- Brief explanation of how FTC competitions work and how they teach STEM skills, teamwork, and problem-solving.
- Discuss the importance of female empowerment in STEM, highlighting the impact of the "No Boys Allowed" robotics team.

- Engagement:
- Device-based activity: Participants can use a mobile app to explore more about FIRST Tech Challenge, including viewing recent games and results.

5. Hands-On Robotics Demonstration (10 minutes)

- Content
- Live demo: Show a working robot built by Lutheran High School students.
- Walk through the design and programming process, discussing how pre-service teachers contribute to coaching and mentorship.
- Discuss how robots are used in competitions, including challenges and teamwork strategies.

- Engagement:
- Q&A: Participants ask questions about robot design, coding, and how teams work together to solve challenges.
- Invite a few participants to try controlling the robot using basic programming.

6. FIRST Access and Inclusive Mentorship (10 minutes)

- Content:
- Introduce the FIRST Access program, where Lutheran High students act as one-on-one mentors for a team of special needs students.
- Discuss the mentoring model and its impact on both the high school students and the special needs team members.
- Highlight personal stories of success and empowerment from the mentors and mentees.

- Engagement:
- Peer-to-peer interaction: Participants will discuss ways to implement inclusive mentorship models in their own schools.
- Quick reflection: How can educators ensure all students, including those with special needs, benefit from STEM initiatives?

7. Closing and Reflection (5 minutes)

- Content:
- Recap key takeaways: The power of partnerships, experiential learning, and empowering underrepresented groups in STEM.
- Provide resources and contacts for further information on establishing similar programs.

- Engagement:
- Final Q&A session.
- Encourage participants to share how they plan to use what they’ve learned in their own contexts.

This outline integrates the session's themes of partnership, robotics, experiential learning, and empowerment while actively engaging the audience through discussion, reflection, and hands-on activities.

Supporting research

Kim, C., Kim, D., Yuan, J., Hill, R. B., Doshi, P., & Thai, C. N. (2015).
Robotics to promote elementary education preservice teachers' STEM engagement, learning, and teaching. Computers & education, 91, 14-31. We report a research project with a purpose of helping teachers learn how to design and implement science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) lessons using robotics. Specifically, preservice teachers' STEM engagement, learning, and teaching via robotics were investigated in an elementary teacher preparation course. Data were collected from surveys, classroom observations, interviews, and lesson plans. Both quantitative and qualitative data analyses indicated that preservice teachers engaged in robotics activities actively and mindfully. Their STEM engagement improved overall. Their emotional engagement (e.g., interest, enjoyment) in STEM significantly improved and in turn influenced their behavioral and cognitive engagement in STEM. Their lesson designs showed their STEM teaching was developing in productive directions although further
work was needed. These findings suggest that robotics can be used as a technology in activities designed to enhance teachers' STEM engagement and teaching through improved attitudes toward STEM. Future research and teacher education recommendations are also presented.

Yang, E., Anderson, K. L., & Burke, B. (2019). The impact of service-learning on teacher candidates’ self-efficacy in teaching STEM content to diverse learners. Educating teachers and tomorrow’s students through service-learning pedagogy, 121.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact that service-learning has on teacher candidates self-efficacy in teaching science to diverse learners. Participants included teacher candidates enrolled in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) content/pedagogy service-learning course during two semesters. Teacher candidates worked with two community partners on projects, with each semester featuring work with one of the community partners. Data collected included quantitative data gathered from the Science Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Instrument Form B (STEBI-B) as well as students' responses to reflective assignments. Results suggest that course teaching strategies, especially the inclusion of service-learning, may be responsible for teacher candidates' reports of increased confidence in engaging diverse learners as well as greater self-efficacy for teaching science.    

Melchior, A., Cohen, F., Cutter, T., Leavitt, T., & Manchester, N. H. (2005). More than robots: An evaluation of the first robotics competition participant and institutional impacts. Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University.
FIRST also helped increase participants’ interest in serving others: 65% of respondents reported that, as a result of FIRST, they wanted to help younger students learn about math and science; 52% reported that they had become more active in their community.
The large majority of participants also reported that FIRST had helped them gain communications, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills, and how to apply academic skills in real-world settings. Women and minority alumni also majored in Engineering at comparatively high rates. Thirty-three percent of the female FRC alumni, 27% of the African-American alumni, and 47% of the Hispanic alumni reported majoring in Engineering (compared to national
averages of 2%, 5% and 6% respectively).

Rocker Yoel, S., Shwartz Asher, D., Schohet, M., & Dori, Y. J. (2020). The effect of the FIRST robotics program on its graduates. Robotics, 9(4), 84.
The program For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) for young students incorporates project-based learning (PBL) with designing and building wireless-controlled robots. The students are guided by experts, mostly engineers. The FIRST organization determines the theme of the robot annual competition. The goal of this research is to characterize and evaluate the e ect of the FIRST program on graduates’ self-efficacy, interpersonal skills, and career choices in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The research participants included 297 FIRST graduates, mostly high schoolers, who responded to questionnaires, and five of them were interviewed. Analysis of the data showed that the FIRST program improved graduates’
interpersonal skills such as time management, teamwork skills, and self-e cacy, as well as had an
impact on the graduates’ STEM career choices. The main factors impacting the graduates’ career
choice was their exposure to robotics and to experts from the industry. The theoretical contribution is to the social cognitive theory (SCT) in the context of the FIRST program. Our study explains students’ career choice through correlations among students’ aspirations for choosing a career, their self-efficacy, their interpersonal skills, and their actual choice. The practical contribution lies in better understanding the robotic PBL program and expanding the STEM workforce.