Promising Practices for Engaging Families in STEM Learning

The technology revolution has made it critical for all children to understand science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) or risk being left behind. Promising Practices for Engaging Families in STEM Learning explores how families, schools, and communities can join together to promote student success in STEM by building organized and equitable pathways for family engagement across all settings. The monograph includes three main sections with chapters from leading thinkers in the field, providing the theoretical and research base for the importance of family engagement in STEM, success stories, best practices, and approaches to engaging families in STEM, and how policies at the local, state, and federal level can support the promotion of family engagement in STEM.

Format: Hardback
Length: 184 pages
Publication date: 30 May 2018
Publisher: Information Age Publishing

-STEM helps parents and children develop a shared language and understanding of the world around them.
The technology revolution has made it essential for all children to comprehend science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to avoid being left behind. Promising Practices for Engaging Families in STEM Learning explores how families, schools, and communities can collaborate to promote student success in STEM by creating organized and equitable pathways for family engagement across all learning settings, including schools, early childhood programs, homes, libraries, and museums, from early childhood through adolescence. This thought-provoking monograph includes three main sections with chapters from prominent figures in the field: The first section provides the theoretical and research foundation for the significance of family engagement in STEM, highlighting the challenges and opportunities that exist, from the transmission of adults' anxiety and lack of confidence in their own STEM skills to inequalities in out-of-school learning opportunities and biases and misconceptions about the kinds of STEM supports offered by families from low-income and immigrant homes. The second section builds on this research by presenting success stories, best practices, and approaches to engaging families in STEM. The final section focuses on how policies at the local, state, and federal levels can support the promotion of family engagement in STEM. Taken together, the monograph demonstrates that STEM is a powerful mechanism to connect, engage, and empower families. STEM provides opportunities for parents and children to spend time together asking fun and meaningful questions that link in-and out-of-school learning. STEM creates new experiences for families to co-construct and support learning with their children from the earliest years throughout formal schooling and on. STEM helps parents and children develop a shared language and understanding of the world around them.

Weight: 448g
Dimension: 164 x 241 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781641132817