Interest-driven STEM learning among youth through a social networking site

Abstract

Engaging middle school youth in STEM curricula resulting in desired conceptual changes is challenging. Furthermore, social media are identified as platforms where youth naturally congregate for sustained interaction. Studio STEM was designed as an after school programme to engage learners (ages 11-15) in design-based science inquiry within a studio environment, enhanced by social media and digital tools. In the highlighted curriculum, Save the Penguins, youth performed scientific experiments and engineering practices to design an enclosure to protect penguin-shaped ice cubes from rising temperature. Researchers tracked attendee and facilitator interactions through the social networking site, Edmodo. Results assert that youth's understanding of science concepts was enhanced through participation in Studio STEM, evidenced through their articulation of understanding through Edmodo. Articulation remained dependent upon the amount of prompting that facilitators used within the Edmodo site as well as the availability of time set aside for students to interact with Edmodo.Biographical notes: Michael A. Evans is the Principal Investigator for the Studio STEM Project, researching adoption and use of social media for informal STEM learning. M.A. Evans et al.Samantha G.L. Won is a first-year doctoral student researching the role of social media in teaching and learning.Tiffany Drape is the Project Manager for Studio STEM through the Office of Educational Research and Outreach, researching teacher preparation and how educators integrate technology into their classrooms.

Motivating Students to Learn AI Through Social Networking Sites: A Case Study in Hong Kong

“…These platforms may extend students' learning environment outside the classroom, enable students to co-construct knowledge without constraints of time and space, and thereby serve as an effective learning tool for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) areas (e.g. Evans, Won & Drape, 2014;Greenhow, Robelia & Hughes, 2009;Holland & Muilenburg, 2011;Won et al, 2017).…”

The role of media in influencing students’ STEM career interest

“…Some studies have found a positive correlation between media exposure (including paper-based reading, television viewing, and internet using) and affinity to STEM careers (Dabney et al, 2012;Dudo et al, 2011;Lantz, 2015). Experimental studies also saw an increased engagement and interest in learning STEM among students as a result of incorporating mobile technology (Gilliam et al, 2016;Metcalf et al, 2008) and social networking sites (Evans & Drape, 2014) in students' learning experience. Without examining indirect effects, such evidence of the positive effects of STEM media was often interpreted as media setting the normative image (or representation) of the STEM profession (Aladé et al, 2020;Wyss et al, 2012).…”

A Systematic Review of Technology-Driven Interest-Based Learning Environments

“…Finally, 5 papers exclusively used triggered situational interest in their work. As one would expect, novel technologies like AR (Kao, Chin, Wang, & Chen, 2019), Virtual Reality (VR) (Chin, Kao, & Hsieh, 2018), and Makerspaces (Evans, Won, & Drape, 2014) were used to spark short-term interest in learning content. For instance, Kao et al (2019) leveraged the ability of AR to enhance students' perception of their surroundings in a museum setting.…”

“…Lingling, Guowei, and Yu (2011) proposed an IBL-design framework in the context of teaching C programming using triggered situational interest. However, only 2 (Evans et al, 2014;Kao et al, 2019) of the 5 studies ran empirical studies. Both studies found significant positive impact on learning performance and overall understanding of learning content.…”