CEISMC Impact Magazine 2022

IMP ACT

Educational Research & Outreach

GEORGIA TECH ADMINISTRATION

Ángel Cabrera, President

Steven McLaughlin, Provost & Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

CEISMC LEADERSHIP

Lizanne DeStefano, Executive Director

Meltem Alemdar, Associate Director, Educational Research & Evaluation

Sirocus Barnes, Director, Student Programs

Bonnie Harris , Director, Strategic Partnerships & GIFT Program

Norman “Storm” Robinson III , Associate Director, School & Community Engagement

Ken Surdin, Director, EXCEL Program

Heidi Turcotte , Program Director, Campus & Community Coordination

Marion Usselman , Associate Director, Development & Educational Innovation

CEISMC COMMUNICATIONS TEAM

Joëlle Walls , Editor-in-Chief

James-Addis Hill , Creative Director

Angelica Jones, Writer & Copy Editor

Photography provided by CEISMC, Institute Communications, Georgia Tech Professional Education, and external collaborators

CEISMC Impact Educational Research and Outreach Magazine is published by the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing with production provided by Georgia Tech’s Printing and Copying Services

Georgia Institute of Technology

throughout

Mission

The Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) enhances PreK-12 and postsecondary STEM education by drawing upon the expertise and scholarly contributions of the Georgia Tech community. CEISMC advocates for and leads systemic changes to increase STEM interest and achievement for all students, especially those underrepresented in STEM. CEISMC’s research efforts allow for the identification and dissemination of evidence-based best practices in STEM education.

Vision

CEISMC will define and exemplify effective STEM education to maximize students’ readiness to excel in a rapidly changing world. We are leaders in influencing significant curricular, pedagogical, social and policy reform efforts that will shape STEM education and workforce development.

Goals

Inspiring STEM Enrichment and Outreach for Students

Intensive Professional Development for STEM Educators

Local and Sustainable Community Partnerships

Innovative STEM Education

Crucial Research and Impactful Evaluation of STEM Education

Dynamic Opportunities For Georgia Tech Community Engagement

A Message from the Executive Director

Upon entering my seventh year as executive director, I cannot think of a better place to be. CEISMC is and continues to be a leader in building stronger, sustainable ties to the local community and beyond as Georgia Tech establishes itself as an Anchor Institution in the Atlanta region.

Our efforts would not be possible without the passion, commitment, and ingenuity of CEISMC faculty and staff who demonstrate these qualities daily to bring STEM and STEAM transformative experiences and innovative curricula to pre-collegiate students and teachers.

With that, CEISMC has experienced quite a few milestones in the last two years. We celebrated our 30th anniversary in 2020 and pivoted to virtual platforms for our K-12 student and teacher programming in 2020 and 2021, serving almost 60,000 students and families. In spring 2022, the GoSTEM program hosted its 10th annual bilingual Latino College and STEM Fair, and all partner schools in Atlanta Public Schools’ Washington Cluster earned STEM certification. CEISMC also received a Building Opportunities in Out-of-School Time (BOOST) grant to support its K-12 STEAM offerings, as well as provide scholarships for families from underserved and underrepresented populations to participate in the plethora of yearround programming. Funding for the BOOST program comes from the American Rescue Plan, and the grant program is administered by the Georgia Department of Education in partnership with the Georgia Statewide Afterschool Network.

Summer 2022 ushered in the return of in-person activities which was welcomed and much appreciated by students, teachers, and families. We had over 500 unique participants in Atlanta and over 300 more in Savannah for summer camps. On-campus and online teacher professional development for various initiatives such as the K-12 InVenture Prize and GoSTEAM, and NSF-funded research such as BIRDEE and STEM-ID, also took place. CEISMC also held the inaugural First-Generation College Institute, a one-day event in Atlanta and Savannah for rising first-generation and limited income 8th through 12th graders to prepare them in making the successful transition to college while increasing their exposure to STEM and STEAM enrichment. Georgia Tech’s First-Generation Student Programs (Office of Undergraduate Education) and the Office of Undergraduate Admission

Since CEISMC is often the first contact that students, teachers, and families have with Georgia Tech, this connection is critically important in promoting the Institute’s brand, increasing access to high quality STEM and STEAM experiences for all students, and creating a pathway to Georgia

That is why CEISMC also plays a critical role in the implementation of Georgia Tech’s strategic plan, introduced in 2020 with a shared vision for the next decade – “Progress and Service for All.” We are heavily engaged in all strategic focus areas, especially to Amplify Impact, Champion Innovation, and Expand Access.

Additionally, Georgia Tech is entering a five-year comprehensive campaign –– with the defining themes of transforming lives, transforming ideas, transforming learning, and transforming our community and our world. Our mission, vision, and goals resonate with these campaign themes that will help advance the Institute and its impact – on people’s lives, on the way we work together to create innovative solutions, and on our world – for decades to come.

Warm regards,

Dr. Lizanne DeStefano

Executive Director

Center for Education Integrating

Science, Mathematics, & Computing

AMPLIFY IMPACT

CHAMPION INNOVATION

CONNECT GLOBALLY

Team “Electric City” from Mount Bethel Elementary School received the Energy Award at the 2022 K-12 InVenture Prize awards ceremony.

EXPAND ACCESS

Middle school engineering teachers toured Tech research labs this summer to better understand how to implement the STEM-ID curriculum in their classrooms.

CULTIVATE WELL-BEING

Researchers from Georgia Tech and the University of Puerto Rico - Río Piedras are collaborating on the “REMEZCLA” project to broaden participation of Latinx students in computing.

LEAD BY EXAMPLE

CEISMC’s Student Programs received BOOST funding from the Georgia Department of Education to serve more youth, reduce barriers to participation, and increase programmatic quality.

Over 600 K-12 students participated in STEM activities, including an online event in Puerto Rico, a week before GoSTEM’s 10th Annual Latino College and STEM Fair.

EXCEL students learned about micro:bits during a summer camp, one of many academic opportunities offered by the inclusive post-secondary education program.

How does the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) exemplify Georgia Tech’s strategic focus areas?

High school physics teacher goes beyond classroom instruction to inspire and mentor students

By Angelica Jones

During the 2022 Georgia Science and Engineering Fair (GSEF), M.E. Stilwell School of the Arts students Anna Njie and Cailon Spiggs-Green won the senior division special award in physics and astronomy with their project “Using Standing Waves to Study Waves’ Behavior.” Both credit their physics teacher and mentor Rajini Sundararaj for preparing them to compete at the state’s premier event, which is a feeder competition for the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the world’s largest precollegiate fair.

“Having Ms. Sundararaj as a teacher throughout this whole process was one of the major reasons why I was able to learn so much from this experience and my consequent success in the science fair,” said Njie, now a first-year student at Vanderbilt University. “She also went above and beyond in supporting my decision to compete in the school, regional, and state fairs.”

“Ms. Sundararaj is a pivotal figure to many of her students as she goes the extra mile to help us stay on the right track,” added Spiggs-Green, now a first-year student at Georgia State University. “She’s not just a teacher for school, but a teacher for life. I have learned so many things from her that will guide me always.”

Coming from a family of educators, Sundararaj said she was motivated to not only become a teacher herself, but also become a teacher who supports students from underserved communities. “Here I acquired my very own basic template for a benevolent outlook of the world and this life experience has taught me the most important lesson, that learning is primarily acquired through living and experiencing as compared to textbooks,” she explained.

Sundararaj has prominently elevated her students through her participation in the Georgia Intern-Fellowships for Teachers (GIFT) for the past 12 years. Since the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) created the program in 1991, K-12 teachers have had the opportunity to gain first-hand experience in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) through internships in industry, universities, and organizations so that they can develop relevant STEM curricula for their own classroom implementation.

During her GIFT internship period, Sundararaj has been nominated and received the Paul A. Duke GIFT Action Plan Teacher Achievement Award in 2019 and 2020 for successfully implementing her lessons and activities in class.

“Rajini is never satisfied with the status quo. She is always seeking to create advantages for her students,” said Bonnie Harris, GIFT program director. “She does not allow students’ backgrounds to dictate her level of expectations for them. She meets her students where they are and then takes them to the next level.”

Every year, Sundararaj brings students to the Georgia Tech labs where she interned during her GIFT experiences, giving

her students a real-world snapshot of what to expect if they choose to explore these fields in college. She also has involved her students in GIFT’s high school version of the program called Research, Experiment, Analyze, and Learn. Through these two CEISMC initiatives, Sundararaj has made long-lasting connections with Georgia Tech professors and graduate students whom she has invited as guest speakers into her classroom as well as arranged with them on-campus learning experiences for her students during the academic year.

“The experience I gained from the GIFT program has helped me to connect the science content to real-life phenomena for students,” she said. “The program has also enriched my teaching skills in implementing science and engineering practices in the classroom where I have been able to create academically rigorous and authentic classroom instruction that not only empower my students, but also prepare them for the future.”

Repertoire of Student Success

For her efforts, Rajini Sundararaj’s students have competed in state-level fairs with advancement to national and international competitions. Some of these students have also been accepted to highly reputed universities to pursue their STEM careers.

“I was lucky to have Ms. Sundararaj as a teacher and mentor. The physics lessons that she taught provided me with a strong foundation which I am now using here at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She inspires hope and instills a love of learning.”

Kevin Kurashima, 2021 GSEF and Regeneron ISEF finalist

Cailon Spiggs-Green and Anna Njie credit their high school physics teacher Rajini Sundararaj for preparing them to compete at the state’s premier event.

“What makes Ms. Sundararaj distinctive in comparison to others in her field is her mission and willingness to study topics broader than textbook work. She is a very hands-on educator who encourages students to think beyond the norm and express their ideas through physics and other scientific measures.”

KeShaun Kelly, 2020 GSEF winner and Regeneron ISEF finalist

Georgia Tech undergraduate explores career options through pre-teaching internships

By Joëlle Walls

In his first year at Georgia Tech, mechanical engineering major Daniel Webber had the opportunity to engage with middle and high school students through two unique internships that allowed him to explore teaching as a possible career choice.

“I don’t have a particular plan for immediately after college but want to seek an engineering position in which I am making a visibly positive impact on others’ lives and exercising the full extent of my creativity,” he said. “I have been trying to find something of a niche in between engineering and education.”

Both internships were made possible through existing partnerships created by the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC). For the last decade, Pre-Teaching Advisor Susan Belmonte has been facilitating these types of experiential learning opportunities with public and private schools and community organizations.

“Students who complete the internships traditionally have some interest in education whether using their talents directly as a teacher in that space or being involved through their industry through outreach,” explained Belmonte, who has a dual role with CEISMC and Pre-Graduate and Pre-Professional (PGPP) Advising. “These opportunities allow students to delve deeper into their interests early on so they can make better informed future career decisions.”

In spring 2022, Webber was one of three Georgia Tech pre-teaching interns at Centennial Academy, a K-8 school in Atlanta. He worked in a sixth-grade science classroom, observing lessons, leading small and large group instruction, and collaboratively planning problem-based learning (PBL) activities.

For example, Webber designed and executed a classwide PBL, “Planet Crayon,” in which students were astronomers tasked with mapping out a crayon-based planet using coordinate planes and creating prototypes of the planet’s waxy rock formations, utilizing their rock cycle knowledge.

“I now know that my ideal education environment and generally my professional environment is one where I am allowed to express creative freedom,” he said. “If I pursue education as a career, it will be with a subject matter highly prone to unconventional teaching methods and interdisciplinary connections, and I would not have known how important that was to me until my internship with Centennial Academy.”

During the summer, Webber was the first undergraduate pre-teaching intern to participate in CEISMC’s GeorgiaIntern Fellowships for Teachers (GIFT) program, which places K-12 teachers in STEM-based internships with universities, organizations, and industry.

He worked in the Smart Structures and Dynamical Systems Laboratory of Woodruff Professor of Mechanical Engineering Alper Erturk who hosted teacher Kimberly Ford and students Simone Marshall and Shameria Smith from Booker T. Washington High School as part of the GIFT program.

Webber said that he was happy to participate in another opportunity to engage with students, this time explaining in more relatable terms the complex concepts behind studying the acoustic properties of the human skull. He also demonstrated his 3D printing knowledge by creating the skull prototypes that were used in the wave propagation experiments.

“The research Dr. Alper and graduate researcher Eetu Kohtanen are conducting in the lab is amazing, and even in the absence of any K-12 connection, I would find the work exciting and fruitful,” he said. “Through GIFT, however, I was able to devote just as much to the advancement of the research as I would to the investment in the next generation of researchers.”

Graduate researcher Eetu Kohtanen gives a demonstration of the equipment used during a wave propagation experiment as undergraduate pre-teaching intern Daniel Webber looks on with high school student participants in the GIFT program.

Georgia Tech and the University of Puerto Rico researchers collaborate to broaden participation of Latinx students in computing

By Joëlle Walls

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Río Piedras campus of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) are hoping to increase representation of Latinx and Spanish-speaking middle and high school students in computer science fields through an innovative informal learning curriculum, using EarSketch, a web-based, digital audio workstation developed at Georgia Tech in 2011. Culturally relevant educational practices are embedded within the computer science content to broaden access to and engagement in STEM learning.

The research project, called “Collaborative Research Broadening Participation of Latinx Students in Computer Science by Integrating Culturally Relevant Computational Music Practices,” is part of a $2.9 million National Science Foundation grant the two institutions received in 2020 for the four-year study that takes place simultaneously in Georgia and Puerto Rico schools. The project (Award #2005791) is dubbed “REMEZCLA” by project members, which means remix in Spanish.

The research team is being led by principal investigators Diley Hernández, associate vice president for Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Tech, and Rafael Arce-Nazario, computer science professor at UPR.

“One of the most important innovations of our project was to take a highly successful learning platform, EarSketch, and make it more linguistically accessible to Spanishspeaking students and teachers,” explained Hernández. “In this way, we are creating opportunities for them to explore within EarSketch a variety of music genres that are relevant to them and their local communities.”

Musical artists in Georgia and Puerto Rico created the sounds and beats for EarSketch that included traditional and contemporary Latin genres rich in social, historical, and cultural contexts that the students can use in their individual remixes, while gaining coding and computational thinking skills.

“Almost none of the K-12 schools in Puerto Rico include computation skills in their courses. Thus, the activities organized by our project are the first and possibly only explicit computer science experiences that some of the participants will have during K-12,” said Arce-Nazario. “We believe that by providing these experiences framed into cultural and musical activities, our project will positively inspire and empower students who could otherwise show little interest in traditional computer science-related courses.”

For the past two years, the curriculum has been implemented as one-week camps offered twice during the summer and as afterschool programs during the academic year at both research sites.

Surveys, focus groups, and interviews are among the methods used to determine student engagement differences in music composition skills and computational practices as well as the role EarSketch plays in that dynamic. The researchers are also studying the degree to which cultural engagement impacts participants’ educational outcomes such as sense of belonging, content knowledge, and computer science identity.

The research team also includes Tech coprincipal investigators Douglas Edwards, senior research associate with the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing, and Jason Freeman, EarSketch co-creator and chair of the School of Music, and University of Puerto Rico co-principal investigator Joseph Carroll Miranda, assistant professor in the School of Education.

Team members collaborate closely with Tom McKlin and other members of The Findings Group for the purpose of research and evaluation. Jayma Koval, Stephen Garrett, Michael Turner and Jyoti Kaneria from Tech and Lilliana Marrero Solís, Isaris Quiñones Pérez, and Pascua Padró Collazo from UPR round out the group.

introduces students to the invention process

By Angelica Jones

People from all different types of backgrounds can become inventors. Since 2009, the InVenture Prize at Georgia Tech has fostered that mindset by bringing undergraduates and recent graduates together in this interdisciplinary innovation competition that promotes creativity, invention, and entrepreneurship.

Roxanne Moore, senior research engineer with the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC), with the assistance of two high school teachers, decided to bring this competition to the grade school level to inspire and cultivate younger generations of inventors. With the creation of the K-12 InVenture Prize in 2013, K-12 educators can incorporate the invention process into their classes by utilizing the accompanying curriculum. The curriculum is a guide to assist teachers and students in following an entrepreneurial engineering design process to solve real world problems.

“You may picture the program as one in which students are pitching their ideas in a science fair style environment. Yet

the real work is done with the teachers who are coaching their students in their classrooms through an invention process, which is a major pedagogical shift for most teachers who are accustomed to being the purveyors of knowledge,” explained Moore, who serves as director of the K-12 InVenture Prize. “As open-ended as the K-12 InVenture Prize is, we’re empowering and equipping teachers with the tools to help their students identify as inventors so they can bring their ideas to life.”

Since its formation, more than 20,000 students have participated in the competition, which is the Georgia qualifying event for the National Invention Convention. The last competition season to be held in person was 2020 and has been held exclusively online for the last two years. CEISMC hosted a VIP event for the 2022 winners, which included 60 students coming to campus for an awards ceremony and hands-on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) activities. The event ended with the InVenture Prize live show. First-place groups also received offers to patent their inventions, donated by the Georgia Intellectual Property Alliance.

Expanding into Rural Communities

The K-12 InVenture Prize team was looking for opportunities to bring the curriculum and competition into more rural regions of the state. The expansion into Thomasville in 2022 started with Katie Chastain, founder of Tisk/Task, an education platform that teaches students creative problem solving through real world challenges. She approached the team about bringing STEM opportunities into the community.

With K-12 InVenture Prize support, Chastain was able to partner with Southern Regional Technical College to help teachers implement the curriculum in their classrooms. The future includes Southern Regional Technical College becoming a regional hub, assisting in the planning of teacher professional development, recruiting local schools and districts, and running local competitions.

“Thomasville is a nice example of how we can use our invention education program and competition as an opportunity to build bridges with parts of Georgia that don’t see Georgia Tech as a possibility,” said K-12 InVenture Prize Director Roxanne Moore. “So, we really need local

championing by people who know their unique workforce development needs so that we can empower and partner with them in building their own ecosystems of entrepreneurs.”

For the 2022 competition, Chastain’s team from Thomasville High School Scholars Academy, called “The Clean Road Co.,” brought home the Manufacturing Award during their first appearance. Landon Beaty, Mac Mobley, and Brandt Herndon designed an asphalt aggregate created from recycled and locally available materials that would create greener, longer lasting roadways.

Curriculum and competition combine music, coding, and social justice to promote computer science

By Angelica Jones

With a lack of diversity in the computer science workforce, innovative efforts have been put forth by the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) to encourage younger students from underrepresented communities to pursue the field.

Georgia Tech faculty developed a coding platform called EarSketch that brings music and computer science together. More than 1 million learners in over 100 countries worldwide have learned coding skills through this free, web-based platform that uses Python or JavaScript to create music.

“EarSketch brings music and computing together in a compelling way for a diverse population of students to engage them in further study of computing and cultivate their interest in careers in computing,” said Jason Freeman, School of Music chair and co-creator of EarSketch.

One of the many ways EarSketch is used is through a

national remix competition that was launched in 2020 in collaboration with Amazon Future Engineer. Students developed an original song from music samples of Ciara’s “SET” and sound clips from the EarSketch library. CEISMC staff developed a curriculum for EarSketch and coordinated parts of the competition with Georgia high schools.

In 2021, the competition was reimagined, and Pharrell Williams’ YELLOW nonprofit organization joined forces with Georgia Tech and Amazon Future Engineer to create “Your Voice is Power,” a competition and related projectbased curriculum with the goal of encouraging more K-12 students from underrepresented groups to enter the world of computer science. “Your Voice is Power” explores how coding, music, and entrepreneurship can be pathways to social justice and equity.

“EarSketch, from years of research, shows that it does seem to have an impact on underrepresented minorities in the same classroom,” said Sabrina Grossman, CEISMC program director and “Your Voice is Power” collaborator. “More female students have shown an increased persistence to continue in computer science, and there has been increased engagement in STEM across broad populations.”

The curriculum portion of “Your Voice is Power” includes five to six scripted lesson plans and other supplemental material for middle and high school students. The competition is open to K-12 students, where they are tasked to create a remix using EarSketch, and a reflection on the message about equity. The songs submitted to the competition are judged on music, message, and coding competency with the top five winners each receiving a $5,000 scholarship or grant to start a business. Five teachers are also selected to receive $1,000 each for going above and beyond in their instruction.

“We ask students to think a lot about the messaging in the music and the role music has played in different social justice movements. They take a deep dive into the lyrics and connect them to different issues around equity so they

then can create remixes that reflect their own perspectives and calls to action,” explained Grossman.

During its first year, Pharrell Williams’ “Entrepreneur” was provided to the students for remixing. Alicia Keys’ “Underdog” and Khalid’s “New Normal” were added to the song line up this year. Other updates included the introduction of the Best Young Artist award to allow for more elementary students to participate. Indigenous languages Inuktitut and Ojibwe were added for the competition in Canada, which has also been translated into French. There are also plans to create a fully bilingual “Your Voice is Power” experience, focusing on Latino experiences and role models, framing discussions on STEM and computer science.

“Your Voice is Power” project lead Roxanne Moore credits the rapid expansion of the program to its broad appeal. “We’ve all enjoyed growing and seeing the national and international impact that this program has had,” said Moore, who serves as a senior research engineer at CEISMC. “It’s also a very exciting time since we just reached our millionth EarSketch user in mid-September, which speaks to the effectiveness of these unique collaborations across disciplines.”

CEISMC Program Director Sabrina Grossman assists a student with EarSketch.

CEISMC researchers complete national study on factors influencing the retention of early career teachers participating in NSF program

By Joëlle Walls and Angelica Jones

Retaining early career teachers in underserved schools has been the subject of a five-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant in which researchers from the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) examined the self-efficacy and social networks of teachers participating in the NSF Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program.

Now in its 20th year, the Noyce program provides funding to universities for scholarships, stipends, and programmatic support to recruit and prepare highly qualified K-12 science and math teachers in high-need school districts.

The exploratory study was conceived by Meltem Alemdar, CEISMC’s associate director for educational research and evaluation, who had served as an external evaluator on four different Noyce projects over several years.

The researchers, which included co-principal investigators Jessica Gale, CEISMC senior research scientist, and Christopher Cappelli, former CEISMC senior research scientist now at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recruited about 160 Noyce Fellows in 50 programs across 30 states to participate in the national study.

A new survey was developed using an innovative methodology called social network analysis in which patterns of social ties among network individuals were quantitatively measured. Teachers completed the Teacher Personal Network Survey that asked about their school support structures, personal networks, and attitudes of selfefficacy as related to their Noyce program participation. Follow-up telephone interviews were conducted with a smaller sample of participants.

“Some of our results showed that teachers who have more connected networks are more likely to remain in high-need schools,” said Alemdar. “Additionally, our results showed the importance of expanding teachers’ networks and the significance of receiving unique types of support from the various people within teachers’ networks.”

A detailed summary of results is highlighted in the first chapter of the newly released Research in Practice: Preparing and Retaining K-12 STEM Teachers in High-Need School Districts published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Alemdar co-led a panel about the book as part of the 2022 Noyce Summit that was held in Washington, D.C. in July.

CEISMC participates in Education Outreach Day at international science fair

By Angelica Jones

High school students from around the world came together to compete in the 2022 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) at the Georgia World Congress Center in May. ISEF is the largest pre-collegiate science competition, annually welcoming about 2,000 students. Georgia Tech was among the sponsors of this year’s weeklong competition.

One of the highlights of the week included Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera being interviewed by Society for Science President and CEO Maya Ajmera. He touched upon his own life story, Georgia Tech’s role in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and gave attendees advice on navigating academia and making a change in the world.

“Whether attending as volunteers, judges, alumni, participants or just there to see the innovative ideas, it’s all about community. The buzz of new ideas and opportunities to network with minds of the future drew many Georgia Tech faculty and staff to get involved,” said Heidi Turcotte, program director for campus and community coordination in the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC), who served as a liaison between Georgia Tech and the Society for Science that hosts the competition.

A very popular feature of ISEF was Education Outreach Day, sponsored by the Broadcom Foundation, in which middle and high school students from across the state participated in STEM-related activities. The Georgia Aquarium and the National Security Agency were among the exhibitors in attendance as well as staff from CEISMC and STEM@GTRI, Georgia Tech Research Institute’s K-12 outreach program.

CEISMC Associate Director for School and Community Engagement Norman “Storm” Robinson III led a presentation in which students built their own working robotic hands, using cardboard, paper plates, straws, string, and tape. Over 100 students from four different schools attended.

“What I really wanted to do was introduce the students to a design challenge that they could really get engaged in and see themselves doing,” said Robinson. “The students had fun and enjoyed a very positive experience in STEM and Design.”

Another 100 students from three different schools attended a session on the “Your Voice is Power” remix competition and the web-based digital audio workstation EarSketch. CEISMC Program Director Sabrina Grossman guided the students through a “Decode the Message” activity in which students learned how messaging is integrated into music, which then prepared them to create their own remixes by coding in EarSketch.

“These activities were a great way to engage students and get them started,” said CEISMC Research Engineer Nisha Detchprohm, who served as one of the workshop facilitators. “I particularly liked that students felt empowered to share and even try coding because many students can get intimidated by any mention of coding.”

“It’s always a joy seeing students engage with EarSketch, whether by asking questions or by teaching one another how to do something in EarSketch,” added CEISMC Educa tional Outreach Coordinator Love Park, who demonstrated how EarSketch worked.

CEISMC holds summit to grow visibility of Georgia Tech’s K-12 outreach

Multiple departments at Georgia Tech engage in K-12 educational outreach in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). However, there was no formal mechanism in place for departments to connect with each other and highlight their K-12 work in a centralized setting. That changed in 2017 when the Office of the Provost convened the inaugural K-12 Summit, with the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) serving as a partner. About 100 faculty, staff, and administrators attended.

One of the recommendations from that summit was to have an individual at Georgia Tech serve as the liaison between campus and schools to funnel outreach requests, and connect campus partners to share experiences and best practices.

“It’s all about that communication piece,” said CEISMC Program Director for Campus and Community Coordination Heidi Turcotte, who now has been managing K-12 outreach for Georgia Tech since 2018. “How we coordinate, how we communicate with each other, and how we build bridges between what we’re doing and what’s happening out in the community is the backbone of this work.”

Other feedback from the 2017 meeting included creating a campus K-12 portal to display K-12 events and activities, disseminating a newsletter highlighting Georgia Tech K-12 stories and outreach opportunities, and developing a K-12 STEM outreach working group of faculty and staff who meet on a regular basis. CEISMC also began hosting an annual STEAM Leadership Conference, starting in 2016 for

By Angelica Jones

K-12 leaders and administrators that featured interactive educational sessions, engaging STEAM-focused work groups, and panel sessions with experts in the field.

A second summit was held this past spring that was a oneday virtual event with 67 attendees representing 30 campus units. The summit consisted of 15 “Lightning Talks” from campus representatives about their initiatives, and three breakout sessions addressing research and evaluation in K-12 STEM education, involvement in K-12 outreach programs, and implementation best practices for K-12 activities on campus.

The summit also included a keynote address by Lakeita D. Servance, who serves as the educational outreach manager for Project ENGAGES (Engaging New Generations at Georgia Tech through Engineering & Science), a high school science education program developed by Georgia Tech in partnership with seven minority-serving public high schools in Atlanta.

“Participants found the event very valuable,” said Amanda Smith, CEISMC educational outreach manager who helped organize the event. “Feedback from our post-survey indicated that many would take action to reach out to colleagues, share information with their home departments, and connect with others to form collaborations.”

To keep the momentum going, Turcotte and Smith are already planning for the next summit, and encourage anyone interested in K-12 outreach to join the STEM

Directory

CEISMC Student Programs strategically partner to provide informal learning and out-of-school experiences for K-12 students

By Joëlle Walls

Annually the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) Student Programs have been facilitating a plethora of science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEM and STEAM) activities for more than 2,000 K-12 students on Saturdays, after school, and during the summer in Atlanta since the late 1990s and extending its reach to Savannah since 2012.

In an interview with CEISMC Impact, CEISMC Director of Student Programs Sirocus Barnes, and CEISMC Savannah Program Director Timothy Cone discuss how their partnership and shared vision of providing high-quality informal learning and out-of-school experiences for K-12 students has flourished.

How did both of you become program director at your respective campuses?

SB: When I reflect on my role as the Director of Student Programs, I can say I have always wanted to pursue this career path professionally. I attended out-of-school time programs as a child, which were very beneficial to my development as a young person. As a college freshman, I started working in such programs and enjoyed the experience so much, I thought about how I could turn this into a career. Before coming to Georgia Tech, I worked for the City of Valdosta and the Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Authority for ten years, directing summer camps, afterschool programs, and community special events. I’ve just celebrated my 10th anniversary with CEISMC.

TC: I became program director in Savannah four years ago. I was teaching high school engineering, manufacturing, and robotics in Athens at the time, while running a communitybased makerspace I had co-founded in Savannah in 2013. Maven Makers was a co-working space where we provided access to woodworking, electronics and 3D printing/design tools and equipment, and offered educational opportunities to children and adults through classes and camps. Since I was driving back and forth between the two cities quite a

bit, I was searching for new opportunities that matched my interests. The CEISMC job opportunity in Savannah seemed like the best fit for me.

Do you have an educational philosophy that guides you as you lead student programming in Atlanta and Savannah?

SB: Learning takes place in many different environments and settings and is lifelong. That is why I like the idea of informal and out-of-school learning because we do not have the curricular restraints that some formal environments have. Our student programs are opportunities for youth to explore who they want to be, igniting their interests through the hands-on enrichment activities. Even academic research shows us that one of the best indicators of students pursuing STEM degrees is early exposure. Through these early exposure opportunities that we provide, I know that we are getting kids interested in STEM and helping to show them that they belong in the STEM ecosystem if they want to be here.

TC: I recognized early in my career my students were getting a lot of exposure to high level technical knowledge because I was in a highly specialized program at a time when they were starting to make some decisions about what their interests may be. But I started to think about the

nature of what I taught was limiting because the 25 to 50 students whom I taught in any given semester or year were only reaping the benefits. I wanted to find ways to provide that same type of exposure and experiences to students of all backgrounds and grade levels. I found that way through CEISMC student programs.

Atlanta and Savannah student programming have always worked in unison but maintained distinct identities. How did the pandemic change that dynamic?

SB: In summer 2020, we really began to think about planning more intentional collaboration between the two campuses. For example, the summer camps in Savannah were going to be very similar to the ones offered in Atlanta. Then the global pandemic prevented us from offering our in-person programs. This really jumpstarted our efforts for a higher level of collaboration. We created new virtual programming called STEAM Whistle Workshops that have continued to be offered virtually during the summer and academic year. We also have sought out joint funding opportunities, which resulted in us recently receiving a Building Opportunities in Out-of-School Time (BOOST) grant, for example. The BOOST grant will allow us to increase our focus on social-emotional learning, expand program access to rural communities, and serve

more students and families who have been significantly impacted by the pandemic. BOOST funding will also be used to provide scholarships for families from underserved and underrepresented populations to participate in our year-round programming in both cities.

TC: We started to put in significant efforts toward high quality collaboration when the pandemic occurred. With the elimination of all in-person programming, there was no longer this geographic barrier between Atlanta and Savannah because when you run virtual programming, the students come from all over the U.S. So, we very quickly transitioned to joint programming, co-promoting, and co-developing the online camps where the instructors were from Atlanta, Savannah, and other cities. As we have transitioned back to in-person programming, it made sense to continue to make these types of collaborative efforts. For example, we held the inaugural First-Year College Institute on both campuses in partnership with Georgia Tech’s First-Generation Student Programs and Undergraduate Admission. This event was designed to help students, regardless of their background, understand that college and specifically Georgia Tech, is both a viable option and somewhere they can thrive. It was important for us to have an in-person opportunity here at the Georgia Tech Savannah campus as well as the main campus in Atlanta.

Student recognized during 2021 Horizons Atlanta Honors

Horizons Atlanta at Georgia Tech is a year-round program that offers academic, cultural, and recreational activities such as swimming lessons to underserved students in the Atlanta area. The program, which currently serves 195 rising 1st through 9th grade students, is one of 10 Horizons Atlanta program sites. During its Horizons Atlanta’s Horizons Honors annual fundraising event in fall 2021, Edward Brown-Dodd was among the Horizons Atlanta scholars recognized for their accomplishments.

Horizons at Georgia Tech Director Sirocus Barnes noted that Brown-Dodd, who had been participating since the first grade, started out as a reserved, shy scholar who became one of the most out-spoken and passionate role models in the program. During his rising eighth grade summer, Brown-Dodd’s class prepared a social emotional learning lesson for the younger participants. “Edward was transformative as a leader amongst his peers by his dedication to this project and ensuring that his classmates understood the importance of working with our younger scholars to help them develop emotionally and socially,” said Barnes. “Studious, caring, and empathetic, Edward sets the example for hard work, perseverance and commitment to educational excellence. We are proud to have Edward as a part of our Horizons community.”

Recent graduate joins Horizons team for year of service

Recent Emory University graduate Shawn Ali joined Horizons Atlanta at Georgia Tech in May as an AmeriCorps VISTA or Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA). The VISTA program started in 1965 as the domestic version of the Peace Corps. VISTAs help build capacity for community organizations. During his service year, Ali’s main projects include coordinating volunteers, supporting the advisory council, and promoting the program to the local community. He plans to attend law school in fall 2023.

Summer student programming is back in person with new cybersecurity camp

By Angelica Jones

The pandemic put a pause on many K-12 activities for the past two years. Summer 2022 hailed the return of in-person student programming offered by the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) in Atlanta and Savannah.

With more than 30 unique camps running over a sevenweek period, a new cybersecurity camp was added to the line-up through a partnership between CEISMC and the Office of Information Technology (OIT) at Georgia Tech with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the InfraGard Atlanta Members Alliance, a non-profit organization serving as a public-private partnership between U.S. businesses and the FBI.

“One exciting aspect of the program is that the topics covered such as network analysis, encryption, and cybersecurity attack detection are the same subjects that cybersecurity experts handle as part of their daily job duties,” said CEISMC Director of Student Programs Sirocus Barnes.

Twenty-five high school students were selected for the first annual Cybersecurity Camp that was held on Tech’s Atlanta campus. The week was filled with guest speakers, hands-on activities, a capture the flag competition, and an FBI experience on the last day that included three tactical vehicles on display.

“The cybersecurity camp is one of many initiatives introduced to promote interest in computer and data science-related fields, as well as the start of an ongoing partnership between OIT, CEISMC, InfraGard, and the FBI,” said Daren Hubbard, Georgia Tech’s vice president for information technology and chief information officer.

“By combining resources, we believe the FBI and Georgia Tech can offer high school students a camp that provides them with expert instruction, exposure to government and corporate cyber leaders, as well as how Georgia Tech can be a part of their educational journey,” added FBI Special Agent Richard Hernandez, who serves as the FBI coordinator for InfraGard Atlanta.

CEISMC Savannah programs meet coastal Georgia needs

By Angelica Jones

The Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) offers an abundance of K-12 programs throughout the state with its sites in Atlanta and Savannah that deliver maximum reach and impact. Just like Atlanta, CEISMC Savannah tailors its programming to meet the needs of its students and teachers, while providing seamless opportunities that can be found at either site.

“We bring a lot of programs, specifically to this part of the state that are very similar to our main campus in Atlanta,” said CEISMC Savannah Program Director Timothy Cone. “We were very strategic about aligning the quality of those experiences between the two campuses to ensure we are meeting the needs of local students and teachers because a program that works well in one environment may not necessarily be adaptable outside of that context.”

ArtsNOW, a nationally recognized nonprofit dedicated to reshaping education through arts integration, already had a partnership with Tech’s main campus, but has been extending its reach into Savannah for the last two years. These collaborations have included expanding CEISMC’s Saturday offerings to not only focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), but also include arts integration, and the development of two new summer programs for 2022: “Artbotics” and “Sequential Art.”

CEISMC Savannah is also collaborating with Georgia Tech researchers and community partners on K-12 initiatives that include:

• Developing an afterschool program, funded by the National Science Foundation, that involves Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) students from frontline communities in disaster resilience planning through mapmaking and advocacy.

• Developing a series of aerospace-themed handson STEM projects for middle school students for Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation.

• Extending the work of the Smart Sea Level Sensors Project to include K-12 students and teachers throughout coastal Georgia through student-led research, new curriculum, and trainings.

• Growing regional participation in statewide CEISMC programs such as the K-12 InVenture Prize, First Lego League, Georgia-Intern Fellowships for Teachers, Code.org and STEM Innovation and Design curricula adoption, and “Your Voice is Power” remix competition.

Make It, Move It summer camp inspires young learners

During this week-long summer program, students learned about supply chain and logistics, explored how things are made, and how they are transported all over the world. Led by a combination of different business and industry representatives including the Georgia Center of Innovation, the Georgia Ports Authority, IKEA, Wayfair, and the World Trade Center Savannah, the program was taught through projects, industry tours, and games that were fun for everyone!

Georgia Tech’s Latino College and STEM Fair celebrates 10 years

By Joëlle Walls

More than 200 students and their families attended the 10th Annual Latino College and STEM Fair (LCSF), a virtual bilingual event hosted in late spring by Georgia Tech’s GoSTEM program. GoSTEM is a collaborative partnership between the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC), Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and the Office of the Provost. Its mission is to promote STEM academic achievement and college attendance among Latinx K-12 students.

“We want students to see themselves in STEM, to feel that they belong in this community. And I’m confident our fair provides that,” said Analía Rao, who served as GoSTEM’s program director. “I am proud of the rich content that we deliver at this event to inspire and prepare our future Latino scientists and leaders in STEM.”

The half-day program began with a keynote address by Cecilia Aragon, an award-winning author, airshow pilot, and the first Latina Full

¡Bienvenidos!

Professor of Engineering at the University of Washington. Then Georgia Tech’s Latino Organization for Graduate Students (LOGRAS) led a workshop on preparing for postsecondary education and STEM careers.

Event partner, Hispanic Organization Promoting Education (HoPe), Inc., presented a “College Experience Panel,” comprised of alumni of HoPe’s program who are pursuing STEM fields. The non-profit organization builds a sense of belonging for high school students to succeed through leadership development, educational resources, and community services.

A week prior, over 600 K-12 students were engaged in STEM activities that were organized virtually or in person at 10 schools and community organizations throughout Georgia with an online event in Puerto Rico. A mixture of faculty, students, and researchers from Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, and Georgia College and State University led the activities.

The fair, one of GoSTEM’s signature events, was sponsored by the Latin American Association, MALDEF, Univisión 34 Atlanta, Mundo Hispánico, and Telemundo Atlanta. The event has also been a staple of the Atlanta Science Festival since 2014.

CEISMC is involved in new Code.org teacher professional development programs

By Joëlle Walls

For more than six years, the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) has been the state’s regional partner with education innovation nonprofit Code.org, which is committed to increasing student diversity, equity, and access in computer science education. For the 2022-2023 academic year, CEISMC is involved in two new initiatives for elementary and high school teachers.

Advanced Placement Computer Science A for Grades 10-12 Curriculum Implementation

With a $15 million donation from Amazon Future Engineer in spring 2021, Code.org reimagined this curriculum to increase equitable access, participation, and achievement for all high school students. While the content and activities are the same, now students’ unique experiences, strengths, and cultural backgrounds are incorporated in the instructional strategies. The curriculum was offered in a yearlong pilot in more than 80 schools in 36 states, including Georgia.

CEISMC is now one of the regional partner sites to provide the yearlong professional development, which started this summer as part of Code.org’s nationwide expansion. Two Code.org facilitators, who are also computer science teachers from Gwinnett County and Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools, are among the 60 selected to help implement this training, which includes Saturday workshops and two-day capstone next summer.

“With Code.org and the Georgia Department of Education, we are currently exploring how this professional development may be used as a pathway for computer science teachers to earn, for example, an endorsement or a certification,” said CEISMC Program Director Alba C. Gutierrez, who manages the Georgia Code.org Regional Partnership. “As Georgia continues to become the technology hub for industry leaders such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, it is imperative we have the necessary mechanisms in place to produce highly qualified educators who can better prepare their students for these future computer science jobs.”

L-R: District trainers Tommy Clay from Atlanta Public Schools and Trina Reeves from Clayton County Public Schools attended a summer training and planning event in Texas with CEISMC’s Alba C. Gutierrez to kick off Code.org’s Evolve Elementary Train the Trainer Pilot Program.

Evolve Elementary Train the Trainer (TtT) Pilot Program

Code.org held a summer training and planning workshop to kick off its new pilot program that will involve regional partners like CEISMC to provide year-long mentoring and support to selected district-level facilitators who are expected to train their own teachers on the K-5 Computer Science Fundamentals curriculum created by Code.org.

Usually, Code.org-accredited facilitators would travel throughout their designated states, but this new model of Train the Trainer will be an opportunity for school districts to become self-sufficient. Atlanta Public Schools and Clayton County Public Schools each have a district trainer who are preparing their own roll-out plans this fall.

“We’re hoping that at least 25% of the teachers in each district are trained in the first year,” said Gutierrez, who will serve as the districts’ mentor. “I am excited about the potential this program could have in Georgia schools and being one of a few regional partner sites in the U.S. to participate in this pilot program.”

Georgia Tech researchers awarded NSF grants to study innovative curricula and technology-based pedagogy

By Joëlle Walls

In fall 2021, three National Science Foundation (NSF) grants were awarded ($4.5 million total) to Georgia Tech researchers, including those from the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC). The awards focus on the implementation and evaluation of innovative curricula in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and the exploration of using technology-based pedagogy to enhance student engagement and educational outcomes.

STEM Innovation and Engineering Design (STEM-ID) is a curriculum that was developed for middle school engineering classes that incorporated scientific practices and mathematical foundations into the lessons that were tied to design challenges. The curriculum was first implemented in Griffin, Georgia through AMP-IT-UP, a sevenyear NSF-funded grant.

“Students who took the semester-long course during at least two of their years in middle school showed very significant gains in math and science Milestone test scores, as well as higher engagement and lower levels of math and science anxiety,” said Marion Usselman, CEISMC associate director for development and educational innovation, who served as principal investigator for the $7.5 million AMP-ITUP grant.

Meltem Alemdar, CEISMC associate director for

educational research and evaluation, explained that those types of results warranted a new impact study to attempt to replicate them on a larger scale.This new $2.7 million STEM-ID grant will involve up to 29 middle school engineering teachers and about 5,000 students, with the first cohort of six teachers being recruited from Gwinnett County Public Schools.

“Our goal is to develop a more robust professional development model to support the larger group of teachers,” said Alemdar, who serves as the project’s principal investigator. “One way is through the creation of professional learning communities in which teachers would get together throughout the year to discuss their experiences and help each other find effective solutions to challenges they may face in implementing the curriculum.”

The new project, one of more than 260 short videos featured at the 2022 NSF STEM for All Video Showcase, was recognized as Facilitators’ Choice among 25 entries to receive this distinction.

AI-Enhanced Engineering Design Process Log - AWARD

High school engineering teachers usually have their students turn in design notebooks or reports outlining the steps taken during a multi-week design challenge as part of the Engineering Design Process, a general theoretical framework often utilized in the teaching of STEM and engineering classes in a K-12 setting.

However, a new study funded by a $849,848 grant is exploring the implications of using artificial intelligence (AI) in a web-based Engineering Design Process Log (EDPL) that would intuitively guide students to document their progress from idea to product.

“This study represents the first attempt at providing realtime feedback in a computational setting for an openended design challenge and does so without marginalizing or diminishing the role of the instructor in the engineering classroom,” said Taetle Chair and Professor of Interactive Computing Mark Riedl, who serves as the project’s principal investigator.

To fulfill that goal, two high school engineering teachers are participating in user studies of an existing web-based EDPL developed for another project by co-principal investigators, Jeff Rosen, CEISMC program director, and Roxanne Moore, senior research engineer in CEISMC and the G.W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

“Since this is a very teacher-focused grant, we’re relying on our teacher co-designers to inform us of what a typical high school engineering experience looks like,” explained Moore. “We’re building task models that show the teachers’ pedagogical thinking so we can find opportunities for AI to enhance their practices.”

Middle School Computer Science for All – AWARD #2122499

In 2019, Georgia legislation passed that required all middle and high schools to offer rigorous computer science courses by the 2024-2025 academic year to improve workforce development outcomes.

Through a three-year $998,567 grant, CEISMC and the School of Music have teamed up with Gwinnett County Public Schools to develop a middle school curriculum addressing computing and music technology learning standards and to create professional development for music teachers with no previous experience in either field.

All three entities have worked together for at least a decade in various capacities in which EarSketch, a web-based digital audio workstation developed at Georgia Tech, was successfully integrated into computing practices that increased engagement as students learned to remix music using computer code.

“EarSketch was designed from the ground up to create meaningful experiences for students who wanted to share their music with others beyond their classrooms,” said School of Music Chair Jason Freeman, who serves as the principal investigator. “That is why this project is the vehicle to leverage music technology classes as an alternative vector through which to promote computer science.”

Students EXCEL through inclusive post-secondary education program

By Joëlle Walls

Georgia Tech’s Expanding Career, Education, and Leadership Opportunities (EXCEL) is a four-year college program for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. With 312 Inclusive Post-Secondary Education (IPSE) opportunities nationwide, EXCEL is among the 8.3% of the four-year programs to offer on-campus housing, financial aid, inclusive courses, and internships at a public university.

The EXCEL program was founded in 2014 by Terry Blum, faculty director of the Institute for Leadership and Social Impact, and Cyrus Aidun, professor of mechanical engineering. In 2020, EXCEL became a unit within the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing.

For its efforts, EXCEL was recently recognized by the National Down Syndrome Congress at its inaugural 2022 Big Game Ball presented by Peach Bowl, Inc. EXCEL student Martha Haythorn, who has been involved with the National Down Syndrome Congress since she was young, presented the honor at the Sept. 1 gala.

In an interview with CEISMC Impact, Ken Surdin, EXCEL’s founding director, discusses the uniqueness of this transformative program.

Q: How does the EXCEL program differentiate itself from other IPSEs?

A: EXCEL participants can earn two certificates over the course of four years. The first is a Certificate in Academic Enrichment, Social Fluency, and Career Exploration and the second is a Certificate in Social Growth, Leadership, and Career Development. Our focus is not only on delivering a high-quality college experience to the students, but also preparing them for life after college.

We also use the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) curriculum, which is an evidence-based social skills intervention program developed at the University of California, Los Angeles to teach social skills. Social skills are very important for the students to have not only for developing friendships

with their peers, but also for obtaining and maintaining employment. EXCEL’s three full-time career advisors teach career courses and help students obtain internships, paid employment, and volunteer opportunities in preparation for paid employment after graduation.

Additionally, we have a curriculum, comprised of two courses, to help students prepare for their transition out of college. The curriculum was developed in collaboration with Mike Fox, who retired from the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Four-year graduates leave with Individualized Transition Plans to help them transition to life after college, obtain and maintain employment, and identify areas in which they may need support to be successful.

Q: How did you become the founding director of the EXCEL program?

A: Before coming to Georgia Tech, I was a public health analyst with a focus on policy at the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. I applied for the EXCEL director position because I liked the idea and challenge of starting a program from the ground up. The entrepreneurial aspects of scaling the program also appealed to me as did serving a population of students who have historically been excluded from post-secondary educational opportunities.

Q: How has the EXCEL program impacted its participants?

A: Fewer U.S. persons with a disability were employed in 2020 with a total employment rate of 17.9%, down from 19.3% in 2019, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In comparison, 89% of EXCEL graduates are currently employed. This means that not only are alumni getting jobs upon graduation, but more importantly they are maintaining jobs. This is not a small accomplishment considering that nationally the unemployment rate is 12.6% for persons with a disability, the highest such mark in seven years.

Q: What is advantageous for EXCEL to be at a research institution?

A: Georgia Tech is uniquely positioned to accommodate technology-oriented students and the technology needed for individuals with disabilities to be more independent productive citizens. Georgia Tech is an entrepreneurial university committed to inclusion and improving the human condition. Our motto is “Progress and Service for All.”

Q: What are your future goals and how do you hope to achieve them?

A: Our goal is continuous improvement and the only way to achieve this is through good data in which you can identify the outputs and measure the outcomes. For example, we are using RCampus, an education intelligence and learning management system that tracks students’ outcomes to help us assess their growth in the program, identify areas where they may need support, and make evidence-based program improvements.

2022 Big Game Ball attendees included (l-r) Ashley McKeen, EXCEL senior lecturer, Ken Surdin, EXCEL director, Martha Haythorn, EXCEL student, Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera and first lady Beth Cabrera, and Geoff Collins, Georgia Tech’s head football coach.

EXCEL students recognized for leadership and advocacy

By Joëlle Walls

Georgia Tech students Antonio E. Contreras and Martha Haythorn are goal-oriented, career-minded individuals who have made it their mantra not to let any obstacles get in the way of their personal and professional successes. Even before enrolling in the Expanding Career, Education, and Leadership Opportunities (EXCEL) program, both have exhibited leadership and self-advocacy to enact change for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD).

Trailblazing Advocate for Inclusive Education

Senior Contreras has been an advocate for inclusive education throughout his life as he overcame barriers to attend an inclusive high school and find an inclusive post-secondary education program that would meet his expectations.

“My mom always helped me in kindergarten through 12th grade to be included with all my other friends in school,” he said. “It’s important that colleges accept people like me who have an intellectual disability so that people like me can go to college too.”

Contreras, originally from the Bay Area in California, completed a year of a two-year out-of-state program before returning home for a gap year prior to entering Georgia Tech. During his gap year, he worked at the Amazon Fulfillment Center, interned in the congressional office of U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, and completed a summer internship with his church. He has shared his college journey at high schools, universities, and disability advocacy conferences.

For his impactful contributions, Contreras received the 2021 Laura Lee Leadership Award at the State of the Art Conference on Inclusive Postsecondary Education and Individuals with Intellectual Disability.

“Antonio has demonstrated that he cares not only about his success throughout the program, but also for the inclusion and opportunities of others,” said Nathan Heald, EXCEL’s assistant director. “We are excited to see where he will go next in his continued desire to make a community impact.”

His personal narrative will appear in the soon-to-bepublished Narrating Higher Education, a collection of essays written by students who are enrolled in inclusive post-secondary education programs nationwide.

Inspirational Activist for Public Policy

Junior Haythorn is very passionate about disability rights. Starting in high school, the Decatur native served as a public policy intern with The Arch Georgia, which promotes and protects the human rights of people with I/DD. For almost three years, she met with Georgia legislators and interviewed other community activists as host of “Mondays with Martha” vlog via The Arc Georgia’s YouTube channel.

Haythorn wanted to share her experiences with the EXCEL program at The ARC National Convention in 2021. Haythorn talked about the college application process, EXCEL’s mentorship program, and how EXCEL’s unique peer support model created an opportunity for her to reach her goals in independent living, social life, academic enrichment, and career exploration.

EXCEL Senior Lecturer Ashley McKeen said that Haythorn approached her with the idea because many of Haythorn’s friends from the Down syndrome community did not know that programs like EXCEL existed. “Martha is an amazing advocate for EXCEL and other inclusive post-secondary education programs,” said McKeen. “She is such a talented speaker and I feel honored to have presented with her!”

Moreover, Haythorn described the experience with one word. “Incredible! Like I love speaking out in front of people,” she explained. “I have never really had that fear. I just can get up there and I feel energized, ready to speak my mind.”

Haythorn has continued her advocacy work with The ARC Georgia through her current internship with the Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation at Georgia Tech.

CEISMC staff member helps teachers advance K-12 STEAM education

By Joëlle Walls with contributions from James-Addis Hill

Edward Gnatiuk joined the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) in spring 2022 as a STEAM innovation facilitator. However, his affiliation with CEISMC goes back to 2018 when he joined as part of its Innovator-in-Residence program. In an interview with CEISMC Impact, Gnatiuk discusses his part in advancing science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) in K-12 education.

Q: What does an innovator do?

A: An innovator is not a credentialed educator, but an individual who brings experience and a skill set to a school which would like to expand in that area of expertise. The best analogy I can give is an artist-in-residence program in which a professional artist would be brought to share their knowledge and work with art teachers and students. The innovators-in-residence program is similar in which participants are selected for their experience in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, and in my case, I have experience with software development and information technology.

An innovator-in-residence will work with the assigned teacher or group of teachers, preferably representing some of the STEAM fields to help them incorporate STEAM components into their instruction. That means either reviewing the standards myself or via a scope and sequence document of what the teacher is supposed to be covering so the ideas I generate for hands-on lessons can easily be aligned, and hopefully turn into successful projectbased learning activities. I am there to help facilitate that process within the school, and this is done in tandem with a GoSTEAM coach who is a CEISMC staff member who has knowledge in a particular area such as entrepreneurship or robotics.

Q: How did this part-time passion turn into a full-time commitment?

Q: How did you get involved with CEISMC’s Innovator-inResidence program?

A: I have worked in the commercial space for several years, some in managerial roles and some in technical software development roles. I was doing contract work when this opportunity with CEISMC popped up. Since I was already involved in similar activities at my children’s school as a robotics coach and teaching coding after school, I thought I would go for it.

I started working as an innovator at Hollis Innovation Academy. I liked the work and established a good rapport with the teachers and the CEISMC staff, so we kept on going. I continued the next year, now under the umbrella of CEISMC’s GoSTEAM program, which is an educational collaboration with Atlanta-metro schools to create sustainable, school-based initiatives incorporating STEAM into the curriculum. I moved to Brown Middle School (now Herman J. Russell West End Academy) and served as the lead innovator to help new innovators come on board.

A: Throughout my time as an innovator, we have had great experiences with the schools and teachers, and the students have done some amazing work. When there was talk about returning to Herman J. Russell for another year, I suggested making this a full-time position because I was at a point in my life where my children were just about grown so I could devote more time to this. So now I am a full-time innovator, still working within Atlanta Public Schools, but also contributing to other CEISMC projects. It’s the most rewarding job I have had.

By Angelica Jones

Student-Centered Computing curriculum aims to diversify CS field

According to a National Science Foundation (NSF) 2019 report on Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering, women make up 47% of the labor force, but only hold 27% of jobs in computer science (CS). This pattern can also be seen in Black and Latinx individuals who make up 29% of the labor market, but only hold 16% of CSrelated jobs.

Through an NSF grant (Award #1639946), researchers at the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) created an introductory high school computer science course under the umbrella of a new framework called Student-Centered Computing (SCC). This curriculum is specifically designed to promote inclusivity through a student-centered pedagogical approach and a year-long project, enabling students to develop digital technology and programming skills as they research and design solutions for problems of their own choice.

During a pilot of the course implemented by schools in

Fulton and Gwinnett counties in 2017-2019, 14 classes with three teachers reached over 350 students. Participants showed increases in cognitive engagement, student agency, and an increase in their intent to continue in CS careers. With such success, two middle school courses were also created, and the team is currently developing an SCC version of the Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles course.

“Our view is that good reformbased teaching that centers diverse students’ motivational and multicultural needs is the primary driver of success in supporting learning and expanding all students’ access to careers in computer science,” explained CEISMC Associate Director for Development and Educational Innovation Marion Usselman, who serves as the project’s principal investigator. “The ongoing SCC program has provided online professional development for over 150 teachers, with implementation in schools across Georgia. With generous support from Google, we’re now working to improve the user experience and to raise awareness of its availability nationally.”

In Georgia, science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEM and STEAM) education is defined as an integrated curriculum that is driven by exploratory project-based learning and student-centered development of ideas and solutions.

K-12 schools can apply for STEM and/or STEAM certification from the Georgia Department of Education as well as STEM certification from Cognia, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that accredits primary and secondary schools nationally and internationally.

One of the services that the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) has provided to its partner schools in the Washington Cluster of Atlanta Public Schools has been resources and consultations to meet the needs and requirements for these types of certifications. The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation has provided financial support for these efforts.

“Through this partnership, we have been able to provide support and programming to increase STEAM access and capacity for students, families, and teachers,” explained

Norman “Storm” Robinson III, CEISMC associate director for school and community engagement. “We have worked with these schools to help them strengthen instructional programming, align systems and resources to school needs, provide teacher professional development, and build a positive and engaged school culture.”

This year Washington High School, Russell West End Academy, Hollis Innovation Academy, Tuskegee Airmen Global Academy, and M. Agnes Jones Elementary School have received the Cognia STEM certification, with Hollis moving forward to prepare for STEM and STEAM certifications through the Georgia Department of Education. M. Agnes Jones also holds the STEAM certification from the Georgia Department of Education and is now in the process of recertification. Centennial Academy, Atlanta’s first conversion K-8 charter school, also received the Cognia STEM certification.

Currently, there are 26 schools statewide with the Georgia Department of Education STEM and STEAM certifications with 12 of those being STEAM-certified, and over 2,000 schools having the Cognia STEM certification.

CEISMC supports partner schools on their certification journeys

CEISMC & Center for Biologically Inspired Design partner on BIRDEE

Researchers at the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) have partnered with Marc Weissburg and Michael Helms, co-directors of the Center for Biologically Inspired Design at Georgia Tech to address the persistent underrepresentation of females in engineering careers through a four-year $2.9 million National Science Foundation grant (Award #1907906).

“Studies have shown that 50-60% of bioengineering, biomedical engineering, and other biology-related fields are composed of women, whereas only 20% of women make up the workforce in more traditional engineering fields,” said CEISMC Senior Research Engineer Roxanne Moore, who serves as a co-principal investigator on the project. “Our working hypothesis has been if we weave biological content into more traditional high school engineering classes, will that attract and retain more women in the field? Alternatively, does the active use of biology result in a vastly unique way of thinking about our connection with nature and sustainability?”

Through the project, ”Biologically-Inspired Design for Engineering Education” or BIRDEE, researchers have developed a three-unit curriculum that spans the threeyear engineering pathway in high schools in Fulton County Schools that shows how aspects of biological systems

can be applied to human design challenges. Teacher professional development workshops were held over the last three summers, with classroom implementation beginning this fall. Visits to the Atlanta Botanical Garden, Zoo Atlanta, and tours of Georgia Tech research labs were included to help teachers view biology through an engineering lens, preparing them for the variety of biologically inspired design they might encounter.

Current members of the team are Weissburg, who serves as principal investigator, and co-principal investigators Helms, Moore, and Meltem Alemdar, CEISMC’s associate director for educational research and evaluation. CEISMC’s Jeff Rosen, Abeera Rehmat, Dyanne Baptiste Porter, and Sylvester Lewis are also part of the team.

Teachers incorporate civic engagement in high school math curriculum

In summer 2021, the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) and the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation, a public-private partnership that guides efforts to help foster access, growth, entrepreneurship, and innovation throughout Georgia, collaborated on a project called “Smart Cities and Smarter Students” that was supported by a Microsoft Intersectionality Grant.

Through CEISMC’s Georgia Intern-Fellowships for Teachers, two teachers created a high school math curriculum based on the City of Savannah’s “Civic Data Science for Equitable Development” project, one of the grant recipients from the 2020 iteration of Georgia Tech’s Georgia Smart Communities Challenge. From this experience, the teachers created an Algebra I curriculum called “What Makes a Good Neighborhood?” activity. By using community-based problem solving, students assess their neighborhoods, including vacant and blighted properties, by collecting qualitative and statistical data to analyze the intersectionality between smart cities and inequality.

CEISMC research associate Jayma Koval, who served as a principal investigator on the “Smart Cities and Smarter Students” project, said that this experience provides an opportunity to incorporate civic engagement into a

STEM-integrated curriculum. “This project allows the next generation to explore creative solutions to challenges in their communities, allows a way for researchers to address the community about the work being completed, and provides students with real-world examples for concepts they are learning in the classroom,” she explained.

Now, a total of nine teachers, including the original two, have brought this curriculum into their classrooms. Koval said CEISMC’s goal is to make this curriculum become more widespread, allowing other students outside of the Savannah area to apply this learning experience in their own communities. Since the curriculum is still in the pilot phase, teachers who have used this curriculum are encouraged to share their experiences with CEISMC.

CEISMC serves as external evaluator for Georgia literacy initiative

To ensure all students are on a path to reading proficiently by third grade and beyond, the Georgia Department of Education created the Learning, Living, and Leading Initiative (L4GA), supported by the U.S. Department of Education in 2016.

The goal of this initiative is to improve literacy rates for all children from birth to twelfth grade by utilizing communitydriven action and researchbased instruction. Federal support, including additional funding provided in 2019, has been competitively awarded to a total of 58 school districts and their community partners by the Georgia Department of Education.

A crucial part of this initiative is evaluation in which researchers Meltem Alemdar and Chris Cappelli from the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and

Computing (CEISMC) have served as external evaluators. Guided by an evaluation systems approach, the team is focused on examining the relationships that exist within and across L4GA partnerships to understand L4GA’s community involvement impact on student literacy outcomes.

CEISMC Research Scientist Justina Jackson, who serves as senior personnel for the L4GA evaluation, explained that previous literacy research has revealed a strong correlation between students reading on grade level and students having a successful academic future. “Through social network analysis, we hope to demonstrate the importance of collaboration between school districts and community partners to leverage resources toward improving literacy throughout the life span,” she said.

According to Georgia Department of Education statistics, 35% of third graders (state average) attending public schools in Georgia scored proficiently and above grade level on the Georgia Milestones assessment for English language arts in 2016. That state average increased to 42% in 2019.

High schoolers learn how AI can help solve community issues

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a permanent part of today’s society ranging from recommendations generated on music apps to the application of larger scale cybersecurity measures. Through the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC), Georgia Tech AI4ALL aims to provide hands-on learning activities and mentorship to underrepresented students in the AI field.

During a two-week immersive program over this past summer, 15 rising 10th and 11th graders used coding for mini-individual projects and one larger group project on the

theme of the year, which was “Revolutionizing Wellness.” Through these projects, students examined how AI, a branch of computer science that allows computers to make predictions and decisions through data pattern interpretation, can be a tool to solve problems within a community.

Since 2019, Georgia Tech AI4ALL is one of 15 program sites for AI4ALL, a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to increasing diversity and inclusion in AI education, research, development, and policy.

“Georgia Tech AI4ALL is important because it gives the students not only the background knowledge, but also an idea of what area they may want to pursue,” said Norman “Storm” Robinson III, CEISMC associate director for school and community engagement. “This program may motivate them to go into computer science, or use computer science in other related fields, whether it be science, technology, engineering, math, or liberal arts fields. This is the way that we can give them the capacity to explore those choices.”

Under Robinson’s lead moving forward, he said that he hopes to motivate more Black women to enter the computer science and AI fields through this program.

TALENT ADDITIONS

Zijun Alexander – R esearch Associate I

Aaron Artrip – Research Associate I

Dyanne Baptiste Porter – Postdoctoral Fellow

Rayne Bozeman – Academic Professional

Talia Capazzoli – Research Associate I

Jasmine Choi – Instructional Designer, now Research Scientist II

Nisha Detchprohm – Research Engineer I

Edward Gnatiuk – STEAM Innovation Facilitator

Jorge Hernandez Cervantes – Educational Outreach Manager I

Keyana Johnson – Administrative Professional III

Brandy Jones – Assistant to the Executive

Diamond Mayo* – Educational Outreach Coordinator I

Ebony Minter – Educational Outreach Coordinator II

Crystal Nichols – Educational Outreach Coordinator I

Kellee Nixon – Financial Administrator I

Jed Paz – STEAM Innovation Facilitator

Dajuana Robinson – Educational Outreach Manager I

Norman “Storm” Robinson III – Associate Director, School & Community Engagement

James Sands II – IT Support Professional I

Michael Turner – Educational Outreach Manager I

Julia Varnedoe* – Research Associate II

Joëlle Walls – Communications Manager

Dasja Williams – Educational Outreach Coordinator I

Deidra Wirick – Educational Outreach Coordinator II

*No longer employed at Georgia Tech.

CAREER TRAJECTORIES

Alba C. Gutierrez – Program Director – 2022

Nathan Heald – EXCEL Assistant Director – 2021

Danyelle Larkin – Educational Outreach Manager – 2021

Ashley McKeen – Senior Lecturer – 2022

Camille Rivers – Educational Outreach Manager – 2021

Keisha Simmons – Program Director – 2021

Justin Turner – IT Support Professional Lead 2021

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS

Nisha Detchprohm earned a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2021.

Douglas Edwards earned a Ph.D. in Teaching and Learning from Georgia State University in 2022.

Danyelle Larkin earned a Master of Education degree in Higher Education Administration from Georgia Southern University in 2022.

Jasmine Patel earned a Master of Public Health degree from Georgia State University in 2022.

Keisha Simmons earned a Master of Science degree in Instructional Design and Technology from Georgia State University in 2021.

Michael Turner earned a Master of Science degree in Global Media and Cultures from Georgia Tech in 2021.

Distinctions

GEORGIA TECH HONORS

Meltem Alemdar, Jessica Gale, & Katie Boice – 2021 CEISMC Outstanding Achievement in Research Innovation Award

Sirocus Barnes – 2021 CEISMC Community Partnership Award

Susan Belmonte – 2021

Inclusive Leaders Academy cohort (Culture Champions), Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Assisted in creating the Office of Undergraduate Education’s Equity Collective in 2020 and the group was honored as a recipient of the 2021 Diversity Champion Award for a campus unit

Katie Boice – 2021 Faces of Inclusive Excellence, Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Rayne Bozeman – 2022 Inclusive Leaders Academy cohort (Culture Champions), Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Nina Climes – 2021 CEISMC Director’s Award

Timothy Cone – 2021 CEISMC Education Partnership Award

Douglas Edwards – 2021 Faces of Inclusive Excellence, Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Sabrina Grossman – 2021 CEISMC Outstanding Achievement in Research Enterprise Enhancement Award

Nathan Heald – 2021 CEISMC Process Improvement Excellence Award

James-Addis Hill – 2021 CEISMC Service Award

Justina Rodriguez Jackson –2021 Faces of Inclusive Excellence, 2021-2022 Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Fellow; 2021 CEISMC Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Outreach Award

Jayma Koval – 2021 Faces of Inclusive Excellence, Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; 2021 Faculty Writing Fellow

Roxanne Moore – 2022 Class of 40 Under 40, Georgia Tech Alumni Association

Love Park – 2021 CEISMC Wreck Award for demonstrating leadership qualities

Analía E. Rao* – 2021 Spirit of CEISMC Award; 2021 Faces of Inclusive Excellence, Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion;

Steven L. Taylor Gallery Dedication

When the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) moved to their new headquarters on 10th Street in spring 2021, plans were underway to install large print images depicting CEISMC activities through the years. Director for Strategic Partnerships Bonnie Harris and Communications Manager Steven L. Taylor were working on this endeavor, which included artwork that Taylor had created for various CEISMC programs. Unfortunately, Taylor’s untimely passing did not allow him to see this initiative to fruition. To honor Taylor and commemorate his significant contributions to CEISMC, the art installation, which is displayed throughout the building, was dedicated in spring 2022 as the Steven L. Taylor Gallery.

“Steven was passionate about his love for education and the arts. Using his skills as a painter, videographer, and photographer, he faithfully captured CEISMC’s many outreach activities in support of K-12 education. Being able to complete the initiative in recognition of his work was a true honor,” said Harris.

Spotlighted as member of Georgia Tech’s Hispanic Or Latinos and Allies Employee Resource Group as part of 2021 Hispanic Heritage Month; Recognized for Georgia Tech’s L.O.V.E. Campaign, embodying core value – “We thrive on Diversity.”

Keisha Simmons – 2021 Inclusive Leaders Academy cohort (Culture Champions), Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Justin Turner – 2021 CEISMC Leader/Manager Recognition Award

EXTERNAL HONORS

Sirocus Barnes – 2021 Georgia Statewide Afterschool Network Community Champion

Justina Rodriguez Jackson –The Learning Analytics in STEM Education Research (LASER) Institute Scholar 2022 cohort, (Friday Institute for Educational Innovation)

Analía E. Rao* – 2021 Notable Leader Award, Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; Selected by Consulate General of Argentina in Atlanta to participate in breakfast with Argentina’s Ambassador to U.S.

*No longer employed at Georgia Tech.

Alemdar, M., Cappelli, C., & Jackson, J. (2021, December 1-4). Using Social Network Analysis to Evaluate Community Partnership Impact on a Statewide Literacy Initiative [Paper presentation]. Literacy Research Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA.

Alemdar, M., Ehsan, H., Cappelli, C., Kim, E., Moore, R., Helms, M., Rosen, J. H., & Weissburg, M. (2021, July 26-29). Biologically Inspired Design for Engineering Education: Online Teacher Professional Learning (Evaluation) [Paper presentation]. American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference.

Barnes, S., & Cone, T. (2021, November 8-10). STEM Beyond the Physical Boundaries [Presentation]. National Summer Learning Association Annual Conference, Washington, DC.

Barnes, S., Nicholson, A., & Oromi, J. (2021, November 8-10). Lessons Learned From Our First Virtual Program [Presentation]. National Summer Learning Association Annual Conference, Washington, DC.

Barnes, S., & Roberson, A. (2021, September 14-16). Providing High Quality Equity Focused SEL Programming in Out-ofSchool Time Programs [Presentation]. Georgia Afterschool & Youth Development Conference, Atlanta, GA.

Belmonte, S. (2021, April 8-12). Novice Special Education Teachers’ Efforts to Impact Student Learning during COVID-19 [Paper presentation]. American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting.

DeLaCoudray, C., Newton, S.H., Alemdar, M., Grossman, S., Garrett, S., Freeman, J., Wilson, J., Barbot, H., & Moore, R.A. (2021, May 23-27). Your Voice is Power: Integrating Computing, Music, Entrepreneurship, and Social Justice Learning [Poster session]. Conference on Research in Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology.

Diaz, S., Gutierrez, A., Monzon, A., Reyes-Newell, A., & Watson, C. (2021, August 24-27). Women and Girls in Science [Panel discussion]. Women Economic Forum - Caribbean: Transcend Beyond Borders, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Heald, N. (2021, October 6). Neurodiverse College Programs: High Education Opportunities and Connections [Panel discussion]. Neurodiversity Education Research Center’s National Neurodiversity Career and College Summit.

Helms, M., Ehsan, H., Kim, E., Moore, R., Alemdar, M., Cappelli, C., Rosen, J., & Weissburg, M. (2021, August 17-19). Getting Beyond the Hairy House: Using Structure-Function-Mechanism to Advance Biologically Inspired Design Pedagogy [Paper presentation]. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference.

Jackson, J., Boice, K. L., & Alemdar, M. (2021, November 3-7). Rightful Presence and the Development of a Professional Learning Experience for K-12 Teachers [Paper presentation]. American Educational Studies Association Annual Conference, Portland, OR.

McKeen, A., & Haythorn, M. (2021, September 26-29). The Impact of Inclusive Post-Secondary Education [Presentation]. The Arc National Convention.

Moore, R., Ehsan, H., Kim, E., Helms, M., Alemdar, M., Rosen, J., Cappelli, C., & Weissburg, M. (2021, October 13-16). Creating Biologically Inspired Design Units for High School Engineering Courses [Paper presentation]. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Frontiers in Education Conference, Lincoln, NE.

Moore, R., Ehsan, H., Kim, E., Helms, M., Alemdar, M., Rosen, J., Cappelli, C., & Weissburg, M. (2021, October 13-16). Using Structures, Functions, and Mechanisms to Access Biological Analogies: Experiences from High School Engineering Teachers’ Professional Development [Paper presentation]. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Frontiers in Education Conference, Lincoln, NE.

Moore, R. A., Newton, S. H., Alemdar, M., Grossman, S., Freeman, J., Smith, J.B., & Berry, T. (2021, July 26-29). Engaging High School Students in Computer Science Through Music Remixing: An EarSketch-based Pilot Competition & Evaluation [Paper presentation]. American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference.

Alemdar, M., Gale, J., Cappelli, C., & Boice, K. L. (2022, April 21-26). An Exploratory Study: The Role of Social Networks and Self-Efficacy in Retention of Noyce Teachers [Paper presentation]. American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA.

Alemdar, M., & Larkin, D. B. (2022, July 18-20). Talking about Track 4 [Panel session]. National Science Foundation Noyce Summit, Washington, DC.

Alemdar, M., Mittapalli, K., & de la Alas, N. (2022, July 18-20). Using Evaluation to Inform, Sustain, and Improve your Noyce Project [Workshop session]. National Science Foundation Noyce Summit, Washington, DC.

Boice, K. L., Jackson, J., Gale, J., Newton, S., & Alemdar, M. (2022, April 21-26). The Struggle is Real: Teachers’ Self-Efficacy and Well-Being During COVID [Paper presentation]. American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA.

Cobb, K.M., Clark, R., Deffley, N., Mathews, R., Di Lorenzo, E., Polepeddi, L., Chavan, A., Cone, T., Koval, J., Robel, A., Hyde A., Lozano Ramirez, J.M., Tien, I., Park, K., McSorley, M., Shabaka, D., & McClain, M. (2022, January 23-27). Research to Action Frameworks for Equitable Coastal Resilience: A Case Study from Savannah, Georgia [Paper presentation]. American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting.

Grossman, S., Moore, R., Larkin, D., & Park, L. (2022, Feb. 23-26). Your Voice is Power [Workshop presentation]. Beyond School Hours National Education Conference, Orlando, FL.

Heald, N. (2022, June 23-25). Iteration as a Critical Component to Transition Planning [Presentation]. Southeast Postsecondary Education Alliance Conference, Auburn, AL.

Larkin, D., Moore, R., & Park, L. (2022, July 14-17). Your Voice is Power: Remix Your Code [Workshop session]. Computer Science Teachers Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL.

Moore, R., DeLaCoudray, C., Newton, S., Jackson, J., Alemdar, M., Garrett, S., Barbot, H., Freeman, J., Wilson, J., & Grossman, S.(2022, June 26-29). Your Voice is Power: Integrating Computing, Music, Entrepreneurship, and Social Justice Learning [Paper presentation]. American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, Minneapolis, MN.

Moore, R., Ehsan, H., Alemdar, M., Kim, E., Helms, M., Rosen, J., & Weissburg, M. (2022, April 21-26). High School Teachers’ Differing Perceptions of the Engineering Design Process [Poster session]. American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA.

Moore, R., Varnedoe, J., Helms, M., Greiner, C., Rehmat, A. P., Alemdar, M., Rosen, J., & Weissburg, M. (2022, June 26-29). Biologically Inspired Design for Engineering Education - 9th/10th Grade Engineering Unit (Curriculum Exchange) [Paper presentation]. American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, Minneapolis, MN.

Moore, R. A., Flynn, L., Couch, S., Detchprohm, N., Eagle, W.E., Garner, J.K., Estabrooks, L.B., Maltese, A., Matheny, E.M., & Talamantes, A. (2022, June 26-29). Infusing Entrepreneurship into Engineering Design Curricula to Promote Inventiveness: A Student-Centered Approach to Inclusive Innovation. [Paper presentation]. American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, Minneapolis, MN. (2nd Place Best Paper Award in the Engineering Entrepreneurship division)

Park, L., Larkin, D., & Detchprohm, N. (2022, June 26-29). Make Beats, Learn Code, Promote Equity: Creative Coding for a Purpose [Poster and workshop session]. International Society for Technology in Education Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA.

Patel, J., & Varnedoe, J. (2022, February 25-26). Inventing the Future: How Invention Education Promotes Diversity in Engineering [Workshop session]. Georgia Engineering and Technology Education Association Annual Conference, Flowery Branch, GA.

Rehmat, A. P., Towner, A., Alemdar, M., Moore, R., Helms, M., Rosen, J., Varnedoe, J., & Weissburg, M. (2022, June 2629). Biologically Inspired Design for Engineering Education: A Multiple Year Evaluation of Teachers’ Professional Learning Experiences (Evaluation). [Paper presentation]. American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, Minneapolis, MN.

Schulz, A., Greiner, C., Seleb, B., Shriver, C., Hu, D., & Moore, R. (2022, March 14-15). Toward the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Conservation Technology for Design Teaching & Learning [Paper presentation]. American Society for Engineering Education Southeastern Section Conference, Charleston, SC.

Usselman, M., Alemdar, M., Makki, N., Nicolino, C., Huff, I., & Huard, S. (2022, April 13). Integrating Engineering Across the STEM Curriculum [Panel discussion]. NSF STEM for All Multiplex Theme of the Month Webinar, STEM Teacher Leadership Network.

- 2021

Boice, K. L., Jackson, J. R., Alemdar, M., Rao, A. E., Grossman, S., & Usselman, M. (2021). Supporting Teachers on Their STEAM Journey: A Collaborative STEAM Teacher Training Program. Education Sciences, 11(3),105. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11030105

Coblentz, D., Realff, M.L., & Alemdar, M. (2021). Looking Ahead: Fostering Effective Team Dynamics in the Engineering Classroom and Beyond. Advances in Engineering Education, 9(1). https://advances.asee.org/ looking-ahead-fostering-effective-team-dynamics-in-the-engineering-classroom-and-beyond/

Gale, J., Alemdar, M., Cappelli, C., & Morris, D. (2021). A Mixed Methods Study of Self-Efficacy, the Sources of Self-Efficacy, and Teaching Experience. Frontiers in Education: Educational Psychology, 6, Article 750599. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.750599

Newton, S., Alemdar, M., Rutstein, D., Edwards, D., Helms, M., Hernández, D., & Usselman, M. (2021). Utilizing Evidence-Centered Design to Develop Assessments: A High School Introductory Computer Science Course. Frontiers in Education: Assessment, Testing and Applied Measurement, 6, Article 695376. https://doi. org/10.3389/feduc.2021.695376

Rao, A. E., Koval, J., Grossman, S., Boice, K. L., Alemdar, M. & Usselman, M. (2021). Building Teacher Community During a Summer of Crisis: STEAM Professional Development in 2020. Journal of STEM Outreach, 4(4), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.15695/jstem/v4i4.07

RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS - 2022

Alemdar, M., Gale, J., Cappelli, C., & Boice, K. (2022). An Exploratory Study: The Role of Social Networks and Self-Efficacy in the Retention of Noyce Teachers. In L. Manier, T. T. York, & B. Calinger (Eds.), Research in Practice: Preparing and Retaining K-12 STEM Teachers in High-Need School Districts. American Association for the Advancement of Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/aaas.add8009

Gale, J. (2022). Inventing the Baby Saver: An Activity Systems Analysis of Applied Engineering at the High School Level. Journal Of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 12(1), Article 1. https://doi. org/10.7771/2157-9288.1312

Gale, J., & Alemdar, M. (2022, March 28). Consider the Source(s): Supporting the Cultivation of Early Career STEM Teachers’ Self-Efficacy Beliefs. AAAS ARISE Blog. https://aaas-arise.org/2022/03/28/consider-the-sources-supporting-the-cultivation-of-early-career-stemteachers-self-efficacy-beliefs/

Gale, J., Alemdar, M., Boice, K. L., Hernández, D., Newton, S., Edwards, D., & Usselman, M. (2022). Student Agency in a High School Computer Science Course. Journal for STEM Education Research, 5(2), 270-301. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41979-022-00071-9

Usselman, M. (2022, April). Integrating Engineering Across the STEM Curriculum. NSF STEM for All Multiplex Theme of the Month Blog. https://stemtlnet.org/theme/april2022-introblog

Usselman, M., Hernández, D., & Edwards, D. (2022, July 5). Student-Centered Computing: Teaching Computer Science Using Culturally Authentic Practices. AAAS ARISE Blog. https://aaas-arise.org/2022/07/05/studentcentered-computing-teaching-computer-science-using-culturally-authentic-practices/

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ceismc.gatech.edu

CEISMC faculty and staff gathered at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History for their annual retreat in August 2022.

Hollis Innovation Academy students participated in Georgia Tech’s

Summer Bridge Program.

ceismc