Educational technology can provide opportunities for creative problem solving where users can build projects that are meaningful to them. Using technology as a tool for expressing one’s ideas is a powerful approach for helping learners become digital creators rather than just consumers. In this conversation, Dr. Natalie Rusk shares reflections about her work on the Scratch programming language, the Computer Clubhouse, and most recently the OctoStudio mobile program.

Bio:
Natalie Rusk, PhD, is a Research Scientist at the MIT Media Lab and is one of the lead creators of the Scratch programming language and the Computer Clubhouse after-school program. She currently leads the development of OctoStudio, a new mobile app that makes creating with code more accessible for children, families, and educators around the world. Her research focuses on young people’s interests as motivate learning. She is lead author of the Scratch Coding Cards and editor of the book, Start Making! A Guide to Engaging Young People in Maker Activities. She earned a PhD in child development from Tufts University and a Master's in Technology in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education. 

Making a positive impact on the community through project-based work provides students with valuable experience in developing conceptual knowledge in science and engineering as well as building important experience in teamwork competencies. In this conversation, Bill shares his extensive knowledge in building engaging STEAM learning environments and ways of helping students learn to identify problems and solutions relevant to their community through the engineering design process.

Bio:

Bill Church works at the intersection of creativity, education, and the STEAM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math). He is a lifelong maker and former public school physics teacher with academic training in science, engineering, and education. Bill has used computer science, engineering design challenges, inquiry, and technology toolsets in education settings for over twenty five years.  Bill has presented his work on project-based learning at many national and international conferences and co-authored a book of classroom activities entitled, Physics with Robotics.  In 2013, Bill founded White Mountain Science, a non-profit STEM outreach and curriculum development organization in Northern New Hampshire.  Currently, Bill is starting a new venture focused on connecting the public with research in Climate STEM topics. Bill and the WMSI team are regular collaborators with STEM education innovators near and far.

Engineering design is a technical as well as a social process. Developing an awareness of factors affecting groups’ dynamics during the decision-making process can help improve team-based engineering experiences. In this conversation, Drs. Robin Fowler and Trevion Henderson share their research and practical knowledge about ways of supporting equitable collaboration among students who identify with historically marginalized groups.

Bios:
Dr. Robin Fowler is a Teaching Professor in Technical Communication and an Engineering Education researcher at the University of Michigan. Her teaching is primarily in team-based engineering courses, and her research focuses on equity in communication and collaboration as well as in group design decision making (judgment) under uncertainty. She is especially interested in how power relationships and rhetorical strategies affect group judgment in engineering design; one goal of this work is to understand factors that inhibit full participation of students who identify with historically marginalized groups and investigate evidence-based strategies for mitigating these inequities. In addition, she is interested in technology and how specific affordances can change the ways we collaborate, learn, read, and write. Teaching engineering communication allows her to apply this work as she coaches students through collaboration, design thinking, and design communication. She is part of a team of faculty innovators who originated Tandem (tandem.ai.umich.edu), a tool designed to help facilitate equitable and inclusive teamwork environments.

Dr. Trevion Henderson (he/him/his) is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University. He earned his Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Michigan, as well as his M.A. in Higher Education and Student Affairs and his B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from The Ohio State University. Dr. Henderson holds secondary appointments in the STEM Education program in the Department of Education, and he serves on Steering Committee for the Institute for Research on Learning and Instruction (IRLI) at Tufts University. Dr. Henderson’s research is broadly concerned with how students’ in- and out-of-classroom experiences affect their learning, focusing particularly on the ways that students’ socio-academic relationships shapes their learning in engineering education. Dr. Henderson uses both qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches to student the interactional dynamics that shape students’ learning, focusing particularly on teamwork