Authoring Joy: Multimodal Artifacts as Tools for Broadening Definitions of STEM Participation

• In Event: 29.065 - Pedagogies of Joy :) Reigniting Conversations About the Intersectionalities of Joy Within Learning Pathways

Abstract

Objectives
Broadening participation is an equity issue but deep tensions remain between ideologies that are currently bound up in STEM knowledge and other ways of knowing (Bang & Medin, 2010; Brayboy & Maughan, 2009; Bricker & Bell, 2014; Hudicourt Barnes, 2003; Nasir & Hand, 2008). This paper explores the ways that joyful learning opportunities for authoring artifacts and activities shaped the broadening participation experiences of youth and adult participants in the COOL program. Project COOL was a National Science Foundation funded, design-based research (Bell, 2004), out-of-school time (OST) program for middle school youth. The program aimed to broaden participation in the geosciences by creating opportunities for youth and adult participants to collaboratively address local ocean sciences issues (Scipio, 2015).

Perspectives/Theoretical framework
As youth and adults participate in broadening participation programming they are also authoring new identities as people who do science and can become scientists (Bell et al., 2012; Markus & Nurius, 1986). This analysis builds upon work done by Conklin (2014), leveraging motivation and self-determination theory to explain the centrality of autonomy, creativity, joy, and play in adolescent learning.

Methods
Data were collected between 2009 and 2015. The data corpus includes video and audio recordings or program sessions, interviews, surveys, and participant generated artifacts. For the purposes of this analysis I have chosen to focus on participant-generated artifacts. I leveraged qualitative analysis to identify moments of joy (e.g. laughter, smiles) and then explored artifacts created or used in those moments (Heath & Street, 2008; Merriam, 2009). Within COOL, I operationalized joy by analyzing hybrid identity or significant science artifacts (Calabrese Barton et al., 2008).

Results
Authoring took many forms during six years of COOL programming (see Table 2 below). Youth and adult participants created many disciplinary artifacts (posters, PPT presentations), as well as hybrid STEM identity artifacts (zines, videos, logos), and curricular amendments (activities, lessons).

[Insert Table 2. Opportunities for Authoring in Project COOL here]

Youth and adult participants authored hybrid STEM identity artifacts that merged aspects of their personal and science identities (see Figure 1 below). Lindsey, a sixth-grade participant, rewrote a pop song to include her experiences in COOL; Steve, one of the mentors in the 2014 cohort, created a logo (see figure 1 below); Emily, a 2013 mentor, created manipulatives that allowed for a playful discussion leading to deeper disciplinary learning (see figure 2 below). These joyfully created hybrid STEM identity artifacts represented participants’ shifting definitions of STEM participation (Bang, Warren, Rosebery & Medin, 2012).

[Insert Figure 1. Lindsey’s COOL Song sung to the tune of “Baby” by Justin Beiber (2010) here]


[Insert Figure 2. Steve’s notebook sketch of the COOL logo.]


[Insert Figure 3. Emily’s manipulatives to go along with the chemical sorting activity]

Significance
Peer review and other disciplinary norms typically determine who can participate in generating knowledge. Broadening STEM participation had two related meanings within this study—both the question of who participates and what it means to participate. Joyful learning is by its very nature anti-assimilationist and connects to resettling expectations in ways that honor multiple epistemologies as meaningful contributions to STEM learning

Author

• Deana Scipio, TERC