Engaging Students in Pre-K - 12 School Projects FLC

Focus of Your Pre-K - 12 School Partnership

PK-12- Engaged Student Project

This FLC helped me create two field trips for my PSYC 103: Perception course students to go into 2 elementary schools for a STEM fair and run demonstrations and activities with the kids on Perception topics from our class. Two to three students were each assigned to a table at one of the STEM fairs, where they assembled and conducted a perceptual activity in which the elementary school children and their families would participate. They conducted the activity and then explained the concepts of why that phenomena/experience occurred. The tables were:

upside-down goggles (stacking blocks, doing mazes, threading beads, etc. while wearing goggles that turn the world upside-down)
side-displacement vision (throwing beanbags to targets while wearing goggles that move what is seen to the right)
motion afterimages and perceptual illusions (trying out different visual illusions)
motion from non-motion (kids made flip-books and played with toys that shows animation from a sequence of images)
tactile braille making (using braille making devices to make their name and messages in braille to see how touch can be used to read)
mirror tracing (trace mazes and draw using vision from a mirror so that all movements need to be opposite)

Course Learning Objectives/ Outcomes

By demonstrating topics within perception to adults and children, this helped meet the Expected Learning Outcomes of "Applying Concepts to everyday activities" and "Describing perceptual phenomena and the causes".

Student Assessment

During the STEM Fair, I observed each student at their tables and their interactions with the children and families. This assessment was graded on participating or not. The main assessment was a student reflection that involved 10 questions about their experiences and thoughts from the STEM fair. Sample Questions are: "How was the experience different than your assumptions, and what surprised you?", "Describe a moment (or moments) that stood out to you in particular from your experience during the event, and why did it stand out?", "What were your biggest successes and challenges for your and your STEM table?", and "What are your biggest take-aways from your experience in participating in this STEM fair?"

I have not had time to do a formal analysis of the survey results. However, in reading through the student responses, the results of the survey showed that the students were universally positive about participating in the STEM Fairs. Many indicated they were nervous beforehand and thought that it wouldn't be very popular with kids, and instead found that the kids were excited and that they also had a lot of fun interacting with the kids. A few students indicated they were considering going into a field where they could work directly with children as a result of their participation in the STEM fair. All but a few students indicated that they would look for more opportunities to volunteer with children in the future.

PK-12 Project Impact

This project had a direct impact on the children that attended each STEM fair. Each STEM fair had about 100-150 children present. They were experiencing fun phenomena with their senses and learning about how our brains make sense of the world and allow us to interact with everything around us. The families were also encouraged to get involved, and the children were able to see their parents and other family members also being excited about and enjoying science. There were some children that spent a lot of time at particular tables and showed a real interest in a particular topic. The goal was to get kids and their families excited about learning science, and this event definitely accomplished that.

For both schools, the principals and STEM fair organizers were very enthusiastic about the participation of the Sac State Students. They were impressed with the professionalism of the college students, the ability to explain the science to the children and families. Furthermore, both schools schools have large populations of students of color, and the organizers commented how happy they were that those populations had good representation within the Sac State students.

Here are some images of students running their tables at each event:

Showing motion book to a student. Showing visual illusions to students. The upside-down goggles table.

Apparent Motion Table Throwing Beanbags for Visual recalibration View of all the tables. Visual Illusions Table

Shared Agreement with PK-12 Partner

I did not have a formal agreement with either of the two schools. For one school, the STEM fair was already being planned and we were able to just let them know the number of tables that we would be running and logistics like needing to be near an electrical outlet. The other school organized the STEM fair based on our activities and developed it from there. For that school, I discussed with them other groups that could possibly come to participate and other features to make the STEM fair a success. Our class portion was the same in terms of number of tables and what activities we ran.

Reflections: Challenges, Lesson Learned & Growth

Both events ran very smoothly! One of the challenges was determining how to teach the students about concepts they would be teaching prior to getting to those sections within the course. For example, in class we talk about tactile perception at the end of the semester, but there was also a table that was dealing with how people can read Braille (so we needed to talk about that earlier in the semester, prior to the STEM fairs). I organized a day earlier in the semester, that was dedicated to talking about each of the demonstrations and explaining the concepts to the students. A challenge was that the STEM fairs happened a few weeks later, and some of the students did not remember to bring their worksheets talking about those topics, so on the day of the event, I needed to give a quick refresher on the concepts to each table. It worked out, but in the future I'll make sure that the concepts are reinforced the week of the STEM fair. Logistically, everything went smoothly in terms of students choosing which fair they wanted to go to and getting transportation there. I would also like to implement a way to have students develop some of the activities themselves, but that is challenging since the STEM fairs tend to happen towards the beginning to middle of the semester, before we've gotten through many of the concepts. It would be nice to have there be some way to have it occur the semester after! I'll consider possibilities for that in the future.

I plan to continue this, but it will likely depend on finding elementary schools that want to have a STEM Fair in the Spring. Some schools do it every year, and some plan to do it every few years. So, I hope I can find some elementary schools that are interested so we can rotate to different facilities each year.

Faculty Photo and Short Bio:

I am a professor in the Psychology Department and have been at Sac State since 2001. I primarily teach Perception and Human Factors. I also serve as the Student Issue Coordinator and Grade Appeal Manager within Academic Affairs.

Emily Wickelgren