Education

Pilot program sees College of Education students fill STEM void for ESL children

HAZLETON, Pa. — Faculty and graduate students from the College of Education at Penn State have expanded a partnership with the Hazleton One Community Center with a pilot program that connects future teachers with emergent bilingual children to engage in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

One of the major benefits of the program, funded by a quarter-million-dollar gift from the Martinson Family Foundation, is that children who may not have a chance to experience STEM education otherwise are able to access high-quality learning experiences outside of school.

“Because schools often pull children whose home language is not English out of their classes to work on English language development, they do not have the same opportunities and exposure to STEM as their peers,” said Carla Zembal-Saul, head of the College of Education’s curriculum and instruction department who holds the Kahn endowed professorship in STEM education. She and her colleagues — Amy Farris, Julia Plummer, Mark Merritt (project manager) and May Lee — have been involved in creating and implementing the STEM Between Us project.

"STEM jobs tend to be higher paying and more stable than other options, making lack of access to these career pathways an equity issue,” Zembal-Saul said. “Furthermore, recent research demonstrates that engaging emergent multi/bilingual children in STEM practices allows for a broader range of communication approaches — such as use of data and representations, drawings and diagrams, gesturing — that can support language development. These findings add another layer to the inequities created by the lack of access to STEM education.”

The original partnership with Hazleton One offered virtual homework help to children in the afterschool program offered by future teachers in the College of Education. During the pandemic, educational programs expanded to include virtual STEM experiences. The addition of a STEM education lab generously funded by the donor was a welcome addition to support afterschool programming.

Zembal-Saul said meeting and working with children at the center this year is embedded in science methods and content courses that future teachers who are non-science majors, predominantly elementary and middle-level, take as part of their programs. Education students first get to know the children and their interests, then work with peers in a mentored environment to design or modify a STEM-focused sequence of lessons. The college students eventually will get the opportunity to travel to Hazleton to meet their young partners in person.

The STEM Between Us project team intentionally seeks to work with communities that are more racially, culturally and linguistically diverse than those in proximity to University Park. This criteria necessitates spanning large distances, like the approximately 120-mile drive to Hazleton, creating new challenges, said the team. Given the virtual format, members of both partner organizations are onsite in their respective spaces to facilitate interactions between children and future teachers.

Involvement with the project has proven to be a valuable experience for the Penn Staters.

“One memory I have from the project was the teamwork that the two boys I was teaching exhibited throughout the lesson,” said Sophia Boysen, a third-year early childhood education major from Sterling, Virginia. “For this project, I was on Zoom, and the two boys were in Hazleton together, and I loved how even over Zoom we felt like a team. I was showing the boys what I was programming, and they would look at what I was doing, and if one of them was confused, the other would help. Teaching over Zoom is a difficult task, and it can be hard to tell if your students are comprehending what you are teaching. During the project, the boys I taught were engaged, and it was their eagerness that made this experience so incredible and one-of-a-kind.”

“The whole Zoom experience was unique to me,” said Julia Hornick, a third-year early childhood education major from Pittsburgh. “I had never tried to teach something so visual and hands-on through a computer screen. I found this part somewhat difficult, however the kids were very adaptive and were able to get the gist of the inner workings of the micro:bit quite quickly. I am always so amazed how flexible school-age students are and by their desire to learn more. After we had finished one micro:bit project, they both asked me, in unison, ‘What's next?’"

Those “micro:bits” are microcomputers the children learn to program using block coding. Zembal-Saul said the micro:bits are relatively inexpensive (roughly $20 each) but provide a way for the children to experience the excitement and accomplishment of coding. It also provides an opportunity for the teachers-in-training to see firsthand the impact their interactions can make for these young students.

“Sharing our knowledge of the micro:bits with the students and seeing them explore on their own was so rewarding to be involved in,” Hornick said. “The ‘ah-ha’ moments are the moments we teachers live for and was definitely my favorite part of this project.”

It also provides those majoring in elementary education in the College of Education at Penn State a chance to work with emergent bilingual students, which for many is their first opportunity to do so.

“This has been the most unique experience from working with school-aged students because most of the students, if not all of them, were bilingual, which is not something that I had previously been around when working with school-aged students,” said Madison Barefield, a fourth-year early childhood and elementary education major from Brockway, Pennsylvania. “This made the experience so much greater as it provided me with experience in multiple cultures, which is super-important to me and my work with children in the school setting. Overall, I’m very thankful to have had this experience before I graduate in a year, as it is a teaching experience I will remember for a long time and will hopefully be something that I can apply in my future teaching.”

If all goes according to plan, Hazleton One is just the beginning, Zembal-Saul said. The goal is to develop three sites across Pennsylvania in three years. She said talks are already underway with Brentwood Borough School District just south of Pittsburgh, where the STEM lab likely will be housed in one of the schools and used for afterschool programs and community events at the nearby library.

Getting the additional satellite sites operational also will expand opportunities for education majors at Penn State pursuing teaching careers.

College of Education students who are interested in becoming involved in the project should meet with their academic advisers to discuss their options.

Last Updated November 17, 2022

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