Creating STEM Learning Opportunities through Partnerships

• Published in: Handbook of Research on STEM Education pp. 152 - 165
• Main Authors: Harlow, Danielle B., Hansen, Alexandria, Nation, Jasmine, Skinner, Ron, Pulgar, Javier, Spina, Alexis, McLean, Mandy, Barriault, Chantal, Prud’homme-Généreux, Annie
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2020
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Stem Career; Research Practice Partnerships; Stem Topic Area; Stem Learning; Professional Development; Stem Topic; Pursue Stem Degree; Stem Content; Stem Practice; Science North; Stem Subject; Integrate Stem; Stem Activity; Informal Science Learning Environments; Stem Instruction; Community Based Participatory Research; Integrate Stem Instruction; Stem Field; Program Outcome Goals; Afterschool Programs; Stem Outcome; Stem Discipline; Stem Identity; Stem Enterprise
• ISBN: 9780367075620; 9780367075606; 0367075601; 0367075628
• DOI: 10.4324/9780429021381-15

This chapter addresses the process of developing programs that integrate STEM content through partnerships between multiple education sectors. STEM partnerships include at least two STEM disciplines and at least two institutions involved in program development and implementation. The first part of the chapter isolates three key decision points: outcome goals, partners, and STEM topics, and tackles each through multiple models for how disciplines are integrated, and models for how institutions coordinate their work together. We illustrate the varied ways these models work together with examples of STEM partnerships in practice and close by discussing how partnerships form and evolve. This chapter addresses the process of developing programs that integrate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) content through partnerships between multiple education sectors. In STEM learning experiences that integrate multiple disciplines of study, students use multiple areas of learning to solve problems. STEM learning ecosystems are larger collaborations between many institutions usually focused on a specific geographic area. A learning ecosystem harnesses the unique contributions of all these different settings in symbiosis to deliver STEM learning for all children. Partnership programs that support STEM learning require two different types of connections: connections among and between the STEM subjects, and connections among and between educational sectors. While carefully designed programs that effectively leverage the affordances and expertise of multiple institutions provide rich learning, programs created through partnerships also risk resulting in a series of disjointed activities where individual activities align with goals of individual institutions.