Building Invention Ecosystems to Cultivate K–12 Innovation, STEM Interest, and 21st Century Skills

• In Event: Creating Innovative Learning Environments Through Community and Interdisciplinary Connections for Invention Education

Abstract

The K-12 InVenture Prize (K12IP) is an invention education program for K-12 students based at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The program is available to teachers and students across all grade levels and both formal and informal educational settings (e.g. during class activities, after school programs, gifted programs). Students generally collaborate, under the mentorship of a teacher, to develop an invention over the course of several weeks or months. Students must identify possible problems to address, ideate possible solutions, research the current landscape and market, and develop prototypes or mock ups to test their ideas. Students learn to present their ideas to others, solicit feedback, and learn from failure by iterating on their design multiple times. Projects are presented at capstone invention competitions at their schools, with top inventions competing in a statewide competition held annually at Georgia Tech. Currently, the program reaches about 6000 K-12 students annually through over 250 teachers who serve as mentors at 100 different schools.

One of the reasons that the K12IP has been successful and scalable at least thus far is the highly integrated ecosystem in which it is embedded. This ecosystem, shown in Figure 1 below, depicts a core partnership between the university (yellow circle) and K-12 schools, with the blue circles each representing a different level of granularity within the K-12 schools. The university partner plays critical roles throughout the invention process in providing curriculum and professional development for teachers as well as hosting the state finals. The partnership also relies heavily on teacher facilitators, community partners, faculty mentors, and local school partners, illustrating the importance of collaboration amongst researchers and organizational stakeholders. For example, students are offered the opportunity to receive feedback on their ideas via virtual pitch practice held online.

The research presented in this poster utilizes a mixed-methods design to address the following research questions:
1) What motivates teachers to participate in the K-12 InVenture Prize?
2) What are teachers’ perceptions of the program’s impact on students?
3) To what extent does participation in the K-12 InVenture Prize increase students’ 21st Century Skills and interest in STEM?

Survey, focus group, and interview data show that teachers are generally motivated to participate in the program primarily by their own enjoyment of it and its correspondence with their goals and values as teachers. Many teachers mention the connection to Georgia Tech, indicating the importance of community connections when teaching innovation. Teachers’ survey data reflects a high level of agreement that participation has had a positive impact on their students’ communication and teamwork skills, enthusiasm for learning about engineering and entrepreneurship, and knowledge of the engineering design process. A small sample of student survey data will also be included in the poster and analyzed for agreement with findings from teacher data. These findings are significant in that invention competitions are a growing phenomenon that have largely not been studied from a research perspective.

Authors

• Meltem Alemdar, Georgia Institute of Technology

• Roxanne Moore, Georgia Insitute of Technology

• Sunni Newton, Georgia Institute of Technology