38 - Helping Diverse Students See Themselves in STEM

Abstract Information: In 1961 a third-grade girl in rural Illinois climbed up a library ladder to the top shelf to pull an orange colored book off the shelf. As she sat down to open it, she was surprised. It was about a woman scientist. No one in her family had ever gone to college and no one ever talked about a woman being a scientist. Maybe she could be a teacher, a nurse, a secretary but a scientist? It was off the table.
Seven years later she won the state science fair hosted at the University of Illinois. Three years later she was a freshman at the Champaign campus.
She did become a teacher and then co-owned a small professional learning company. She formed a non-profit through which the company works, the non-profit retained $80,000 in seed money to start That Could Be Me! Alabama. She went to the teachers she trained to recruit high school students to write and illustrate children’s books about Black, Alabama, male and female, STEM professionals. The students were trained in book illustration, interviewing, and writing for children. There were 34 students paired as illustrator and author. They were paid to attend the training, for their first draft, and the final draft. They were told that only A-level submissions would be published. In July 2023 seventeen books were published. The books are written at the fourth through the sixth-grade level. What do we measure and how?
There are now three audiences to measure. The first are the illustrators and authors. The second consists of the readers - intermediate grade and middle school students who read and discuss the books with the primary grade students. Then there are the primary students. Next year there will be small curriculum extensions for some of the books that allow the readers to expand the impact of the books into the science of the subjects. The philosophy of the program relies on the brain’s attraction to similarities and exceptions.
The books are designed to be read aloud. The state of Alabama has switched to a phonics approach to reading. The criticism of phonics has always been language and comprehension. This approach assumes that language acquisition and reading development are two very different processes. Language is acquired and reading is taught. These books will be used to develop language skills, which would include elements of comprehension like sequencing, comprehension, and extending.
What should be measured? How should it be measured? Who should be involved? A handout of the measurement plan and questions will be distributed at the session. The participants will have an opportunity to critique and rewrite the questions and plan. The intent of the measurement will be to measure:
Interest in STEM before and after the books are read, heard, or written and over time - years.
The development of language skills.
Do language skills transfer into comprehension skills as students move from phonics into full-blown reading?
Parents, teachers, and the students themselves will all be included in the measurement process.