- Grant Wilson
- Project Director
- NURTURES
- http://nurtures.utoledo.edu/
- University of Toledo
- Amanda Gilbert
- Assistant Project Director
- NURTURES
- http://nurtures.utoledo.edu/
- University of Toledo
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Public Discussion
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Kevin Czajkowski
Very nice project. It's impressive that you showed gains in learning like you did. It is not easy. Kevin
Grant Wilson
Project Director
Hello! Thank you for visiting the NURTURES showcase video. Our video documents the key features of NURTURES Phase I and the important research findings that have led to DRK-12 funding for Phase II. In NURTURES Phase II we are exploring the role family and community engagement has on impacting early-childhood science achievement. We are very interested in discussion surrounding the scaling of family and community engagement as well as science achievement testing at the PreK-3rd grade levels.
Christine Boynton
Are you doing any work around early math or is that subsumed in the science work? Let me know. Also we are interested in 0- 5 as well. Great job! The young people we work with asked for earlier exposures to STEM. Do you have any people in the San Francisco Bay Area you are working with?
Barbara Berns
Education Planner
So glad to see the focus on Pre-K-3, and the engagement of family and community as well as early learning teachers. As you scale up to other districts, what kind of support will continue in Toledo? I'm interested if you used or adapted any previously funded NSF early childhood science materials. Also, were there other early childhood science programs you looked at when creating this initiative?
Courtney Tanenbaum
Principal Researcher
Such a nice presentation! And, like Kevin, I'm very impressed that you were able to demonstrate the gains in all subject areas. Thank you for including these data in the video! You touched on some very important points that your project addresses--the discomfort families and early childhood educators often have with engaging children in science activities, and the potential of science learning to promote student achievement across the curriculum. You indicated seeing significant growth in teachers, so it is clear that teachers are becoming more comfortable with teaching science as a result of their participation in your project. Did you collect any data from families? Or, have you been able to gauge the extent to which families are completing the activity packs with their children?
Amanda Gilbert
Assistant Project Director
Thank you, Courtney! We have collected some data from our community events and family packs and have written a few smaller articles about the interactions between parent/caregiver and child. A graduate student working on the project also focused her dissertation research on the way that families utilized the packs. She went into the homes of 5 families and recorded them completing the activities and then analyzed the video. These findings and lessons learned in Phase I on ways to collect and analyze the family data are being used as we move forward with Phase II - which will specifically look to the family impact.
Below are the citations for the articles/ dissertations on the family component of the project:
Reinhart, M., Bloomquist, D., Strickler-Eppard, L., Czerniak, C. M., Gilbert, A., Kaderavek, J. & Molitor, S. C. (2016), Taking science home: Connecting schools and families through science activity packs for young children. School Science and Mathematics, 116(1), 3–16.
Strickler-Eppard, L., Bloomquist, D., Gilbert, A., Reinhart, M., & Czerniak, C. (2016). Research to Practice, Taking science home: Connecting schools and families through early childhood science activity packs for young children. School Science and Mathematics Association (www.ssma.org).
Strickler-Eppard, L. (2016). A Detailed Analysis of Family Utilization of Science Activity Packs. (Electronic Thesis or Dissertation). Retrieved from https://etd.ohiolink.edu/
Courtney Tanenbaum
Principal Researcher
Thank you for sharing this information and these resources. I think it's great that you are going to look at family impact in Phase II, and that you are approaching this phase of the study based on lessons learned in Phase I. Are there any specific lessons that you learned that surprised you and/or are changing the way you initially thought you would approach this phase of the project?
Amanda Gilbert
Assistant Project Director
In Phase I, the entire group received PD and the family engagement components of the program and yielded the gains shared; however, it was not possible to determine how much each aspect of the program contributed to those gains. This lead to the focus of Phase II being aimed at determining what, if any, additive effect the family component has on student achievement gains.
Grant Wilson
Project Director
In the current Phase II, we are exploring the impact to more rural communities and we do not presently have provisions to include Toledo Public Schools. However, over the 5 years of NURTURES Phase I we had the opportunity to develop a team of teacher leaders and a number of teachers that participated over repeated years who continue to teach in Toledo. We continue to have a good connection with those past teachers and Toledo Public Schools. NURTURES was influenced by a host of early childhood education initiatives, programs, and resources.
Courtney Tanenbaum
Principal Researcher
I like the Phase II focus on exploring impact in rural communities. What benefits in particular do you think rural communities can gain from this type of early childhood STEM programming?
Kelly Riedinger
Senior Researcher
I was really interested in the family component after watching your video and learning about the project. Can you provide more information about the family engagement piece? What kind of support, if any, did you need to provide the families so that they could successfully complete the activities at home? Have you tracked how many of the families who received the kits actually complete the activities? Do you ever measure or consider parent-level outcomes such as emerging skills for supporting their child’s science learning or even family-level outcomes such as developing shared family interest in science?
Josh Bernstein
Amanda Gilbert
Assistant Project Director
Hi, Kelly. We spent a great deal of time designing and revising the materials that we provided to families, both in terms of the activity sheets that went along with the take home packs as well as the event guides they were provided with at the community events. All of the materials included "Talking Tips", which provided discourse strategies to help parents engage their child, as well as example questions that parents could use to get the conversation going. We never tracked the number of families that completed the packs at home, but many teachers did collect the recording sheets we included and shared them with us. Teachers have reported very positive feedback from students and families on the packs. There was a dissertation, which is cited above, that came out of the project that focused on the way the packs were used by families as well as the interactions between family members during the activity.
Barbara Berns
Education Planner
I am wondering what feedback you've received from 4th grade teachers and whether they've made changes in their science instruction as a result of your work with pre-k 3 grade 3.
Grant Wilson
Project Director
Barbara, That is a very interesting question - one that we have not thoroughly explored. We have had occasion where past participants have moved into higher grades and continued utilizing the methods and techniques learned in NURTURES but we have not explicitly tracked changes in classroom practices downstream of grade 3.
Further posting is closed as the showcase has ended.