NSF Awards: 1649380
The Regional Collaboration to Strengthen and Expand STEM (RECESS) is a collective impact pilot initiative of cross-sector organizations representing school districts, government, employers, community groups, students and families in San Francisco and Alameda Counties, that seeks to align efforts across the counties to broaden participation (BP) in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and careers for historically underrepresented youth and their families - especially women, African Americans and Latinos.
Challenge
African-American, Latino, and female students are far outnumbered by their White, Asian and male counterparts in terms of participation in STEM fields. The roots of these disparities begin in preschool and continue through graduate school and employment.
To date, there have been many local efforts in San Francisco and Alameda Counties to address BP in STEM, but there has not been a comprehensive regional approach.
Solution
RECESS will constitute a single, unified STEM continuum effort from preschool through graduate school and career. Our modified collective impact model and participatory action research approach engages cross-sector stakeholders, youth and families from the target population groups as partners in “moving the needle” of change and increasing their participation in STEM.
Envisioned Impact
RECESS has high potential for national scale as a cross-sector, regional collective impact initiative addressing preK-20+ pathways to enable student success in STEM from historically underrepresented groups. RECESS will also propose/test the utility of the collective impact model and cross-sector collaboration for adaptation/use in other projects aiming to mobilize communities concerning STEM participation.
NSF Awards: 1649380
The Regional Collaboration to Strengthen and Expand STEM (RECESS) is a collective impact pilot initiative of cross-sector organizations representing school districts, government, employers, community groups, students and families in San Francisco and Alameda Counties, that seeks to align efforts across the counties to broaden participation (BP) in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and careers for historically underrepresented youth and their families - especially women, African Americans and Latinos.
Challenge
African-American, Latino, and female students are far outnumbered by their White, Asian and male counterparts in terms of participation in STEM fields. The roots of these disparities begin in preschool and continue through graduate school and employment.
To date, there have been many local efforts in San Francisco and Alameda Counties to address BP in STEM, but there has not been a comprehensive regional approach.
Solution
RECESS will constitute a single, unified STEM continuum effort from preschool through graduate school and career. Our modified collective impact model and participatory action research approach engages cross-sector stakeholders, youth and families from the target population groups as partners in “moving the needle” of change and increasing their participation in STEM.
Envisioned Impact
RECESS has high potential for national scale as a cross-sector, regional collective impact initiative addressing preK-20+ pathways to enable student success in STEM from historically underrepresented groups. RECESS will also propose/test the utility of the collective impact model and cross-sector collaboration for adaptation/use in other projects aiming to mobilize communities concerning STEM participation.
Continue the discussion of this presentation on the Multiplex. Go to Multiplex
Andee Rubin
Senior Scientist
My favorite line in your video is the one where you talk about creating a situation where the good work that's being done in small pockets can gain traction, since I do think there has been some good work in this arena that has not necessarily grown beyond its initial implementation. I would be interested in hearing both 1) some examples of the good work you've seen that you believe you can leverage in RECESS and 2) what steps you have taken - or imagine taking in the future - that would spread these good seeds to other fields.
Christine Boynton
Executive Director
Right now we are creating the structure for the work by building Alignment Bay Area model. This collective impact model based on Alignment USA has turned the curve on other population outcomes. By linking together the community partners and examining the STEAM efforts we hope to understand the situation and create common outcomes for the future.
Donna Charlevoix
Great project! Much of what you are doing is similar to our efforts with the EarthConnections project (video 1180). We also are using a collective impact framework, engaging local communities, and facilitating the development of student pathways from K-16+ into geoscience careers.
In particular, your description of the community listening part of your project is of interest. This is an area we could have done better. Can you describe the process you took for doing that community engagement and listening prior to the project? Some examples of how you identified who to reach out to and how you engaged them would be very interesting.
Christine Boynton
Executive Director
We are SO fortunate to have people with many different skills on our team. We have some folks who are trained visual anthropologists and so brought that discipline to bear with great result. We also are a County of Ed and a University working together in a network and have a strong youth development team and network. Our visual anthropologist and her team created key stakeholder questions and then did ( with youth) focus groups. In addition, the team created an online survey and all team players sent it out to their stakeholder groups. Once we collected the data, teams sorted through the data and found key ideas after collating the data which lead us to our four conclusions. Happy to share our community finding report!
Christine Boynton
Executive Director
Here is a link to the report RECESS Listening tour report
Pamela Silvers
I really like the Mentoring and Role Model. Great Project.
Christine Boynton
Executive Director
This was a continual ask from the young people: can you find us people who look like me? :)
Pamela Silvers
Our video also discusses how helping students picture themselves - http://videohall.com/p/1114
Sam Johnston
This is a great project. I would love to know more about how you connect young people to role models and mentors and what has been successful and challenging about this? I would also love to know what you've found most effective in terms of creating a more welcoming environment?
Christine Boynton
Executive Director
We are building a backbone to organize other programs so that we can Align all the efforts as we move forward. I can reference you to CHAMPS which introduces young underrepresented people to allied health fields. The most challenging part is matching students to mentors in a way that doesn't overwhelm the mentors as there are more students than mentors.
Erica Halverson
Professor
Thank you for sharing your video! I appreciated hearing about student's experiences in their own voices. The project's effort to bring all the stakeholders to the table is necessary for a systemic approach to increasing opportunities for all students to participate in STEAM activities.
I have 2 questions:
1) Is there a shared definition of what STEAM education means across the project?
2) Could you provide some detail about the "small pockets of innovation" in STEAM learning mentioned in the video, and talk about how these might scale across the partnership?
Thanks again for sharing the story of your ambitious partnership!
-Erica
Christine Boynton
Executive Director
We are working on a shared definition of what STEAM Equity means at this point. Creating STEM Equity is a complex and engaging wicked issue - we are wrangling with how to move beyond inclusion, diversity and equality to guaranteeing young people successful passage to and through education and careers. We have over 130 STEAM projects in the Bay Area in our database and are busy putting it together in a way that is easy for people to find out about particular programs. Email me in the fall and I can update you on the list.
Kelsey Lipsitz
I really liked the student clips included in your video! It's always great to hear about the needs and impacts of a project directly from the students. Like Sam, I would also be interested to hear more about the successes and challenges of the mentoring process -- for example, I would imagine it might be difficult to find a number of mentors who are able to make a considerable commitment?
Christine Boynton
Executive Director
You hit it on the head! See my above answer about programs, we are sorting through and contacting them to gather a consistent data from them. Email me in the fall, I can let you know more!
Further posting is closed as the showcase has ended.