The STEM Innovation for Inclusion in Early Education Center (STEMIE)—a national technical assistance center working to ensure that all young children with and without disabilities are engaged in early STEM learning—has begun providing targeted technical assistance to cohorts of faculty and practitioners in the early childhood education field.

When founded in 2018, STEMIE, a center at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG), focused its work on knowledge development. This included determining learning trajectories (LTs) in science, engineering, and technology in early childhood to complement math trajectories that already existed. Each trajectory includes a goal, a progression of skills, and instructional supports for inclusive STEM education.
FPG Senior Technical Assistant Specialists Chih-Ing Lim, PhD, and Megan Vinh, PhD, who co-lead STEMIE, together with Doug Clements, PhD, and Julie Sarama, PhD, from the University of Denver, continue working with their team to develop content and refine the LTs. But they now are concentrating more on working with early childhood practitioners and faculty to implement and enhance the tools and resources that have been developed.

The STEMIE team has begun providing targeted technical assistance to two cohorts, selected in a highly competitive process: three faculty members from four-year colleges and three from community colleges throughout the U.S., and two center-based early childhood programs. The higher education cohort began meeting in January while the early childhood programs group started in February. The request for applications for the early intervention group will go out in the spring.

During the 18- to 24-month technical assistance period, participants will: increase their knowledge of inclusive practices in early STEM teaching and learning; understand STEM learning trajectories that can be implemented into higher education courses and/or early childhood classrooms; and build a plan for embedding inclusive STEM teaching and learning into their program.

The technical assistance will include a series of virtual individual, small group meetings, as well as Communities of Practice. All of the cohorts will also meet together face-to-face for a leadership institute midway through their program.

“Our participants bring so much experience to the table,” said Lim. “As they try out our materials, they let us know, ‘These things work but these don't,’ so we can work together to create more usable products.”

STEMIE leaders see the cohort members as co-creators, helping STEMIE to refine and shape its products and services so that they better meet the needs of other practitioners and higher education faculty. “Our participants bring so much experience to the table,” said Lim. “As they try out our materials, they let us know, ‘These things work but these don't,’ so we can work together to create more usable products.”

Vinh notes that the technical assistance is very targeted and individualized, with specific guidance to each cohort member. Some participants in the higher education cohort for example, have a STEM-specific course they wish to refresh and enhance while others seek to find ways to add STEM learning throughout their coursework. At the same time, there are many commonalities across the six faculty, which will allow for peer-to-peer learning.

Similarly for the center-based cohort, programs determine the goals and priorities and will receive coaching and technical assistance that address their needs and priorities related to inclusive STEM teaching and learning.

Lim hopes that the higher education cohort members will share syllabi of STEM-specific courses or assignments they develop with faculty who are not part of this cohort. “There might also be presentations about how the center-based programs have achieved positive outcomes for their staff as well as children by setting up an ecosystem of support within their context,” she said.