Icon for: Mei Yang

MEI YANG

University of Nevada
Public Discussion

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  • Icon for: Mei Yang

    Mei Yang

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Graduate Coordinator
    May 9, 2022 | 04:41 p.m.

    Thank you for visiting the UNLV ITEST video showcase. I would like to thank our Co-PIs, Drs. Shaoan Zhang and Venki Muthukumar, the external evaluator Dr. Yonghong Xu, our instructors Dr. Binayak Tiwari, Ms. Jingyuan Dai, Ms. Manisha Ghimire, and GA Mr. Daniel Unger for their work for our ITEST project. Thank all the CCSD teacher mentors and UNLV student mentors for their contribution to this project. Thank all the students, parents, and volunteers for their participation. Thanks to UNLV College of Engineering, College of Education, CCSD, our partners and sponsors for their great support. The background music Liftoff is composed and played by Mr. Raymond Zhang, lyrics written by Ms. Autumn Wyland. The GUIC Summer Camp Highlights with the complete camp song (sung by Cassandra Kliewer) can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16cWkbnS8to&amp.... You are welcome to leave your comment and suggestion. We will try to respond in a timely manner.

     
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    Gabriele Haynes
  • Biswajit Das

    Higher Ed Administrator
    May 11, 2022 | 04:40 p.m.

    Excellent Project!

  • Icon for: Zara Taylor

    Zara Taylor

    Funder
    May 10, 2022 | 05:25 p.m.

    I love what Nevada is doing with CCSD with girls in STEM~ 

  • Icon for: Mei Yang

    Mei Yang

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Graduate Coordinator
    May 10, 2022 | 05:52 p.m.

    Zara, Thanks for the encouragement. 

  • Icon for: Nidaa Makki

    Nidaa Makki

    Facilitator
    Professor
    May 11, 2022 | 08:15 a.m.

    Thank you for sharing your project exposing female students to computing and engineering. I appreciated the tiered team structure where teachers and university students mentor the middle and high school students. I found in my work that teachers appreciate working with undergraduate engineering students who bring technical expertise in computing and engineering, but can also serve as near peer mentors to MS and HS students. Can you discuss how you recruited the teachers? And what were some of the challenges you encountered during the 3 weeks camp? I am also interested to learn more about how you measured impact of the program. Can you share a little about the results from the 2021 camp?

  • Yingtao Jiang

    Higher Ed Administrator
    May 11, 2022 | 09:36 a.m.

    Superb job! 

  • Icon for: Gabriele Haynes

    Gabriele Haynes

    Researcher
    May 11, 2022 | 01:07 p.m.

    I love this, well done! 

  • Icon for: Shaoan Zhang

    Shaoan Zhang

    Researcher
    May 11, 2022 | 02:17 p.m.

    Nidaa, we appreciate your comments on our project, particularly the tiered team. We recruited teachers through a coordinator in the school district. She shared with the school administrators and program coordinators our recruitment letter that includes the application information. One challenge we encountered during the 3 weeks camp was balancing the level of content knowledge and students' knowledge background that influences their learning. Particularly, students' grade levels range from 7th to 11th grade. We measured the impact of the program on students' knowledge, motivations, and self-efficacy through a quantitative survey and interviews. The quantitative results of descriptive analysis from the 2021 camp showed that, OVERALL, student evaluation of their summer camp experience was very positive. Thank you for your question. 

  • Icon for: Scott Pattison

    Scott Pattison

    Facilitator
    Research Scientist
    May 11, 2022 | 07:19 p.m.

    Thanks for sharing your work. In previous projects, I've worked with teams looking at how middle school youth develop their identities relative to STEM through engineering or design experiences. So I'm interested to hear more about what you've learned in terms of supporting self-efficacy. Beyond the overall impacts, what are you learning about the ways that girls are able to develop their STEM-related identities and self-efficacy through the program? What challenges are you encountering? Thanks again for sharing!

  • Icon for: Shaoan Zhang

    Shaoan Zhang

    Researcher
    May 12, 2022 | 12:16 p.m.

    Scott, I am glad to know that you are also doing secondary students' STEM education focusing on their identity development. Our study focuses on engaging secondary female students in a constructive learning environment (CLE) to enhance their self confidence in STEM related fields and encourage interest in STEM learning. Specifically, we found that students gained sense of belonging. The tiered team structure allowed for students of different cultural and academic backgrounds to use their own strengths and rely on the strengths of their peers and mentors to learn and complete difficult group tasks. There are two big challenges. One challenge we are encountering is the time needed for the group projects. Obviously two weeks' summer time is too short. Another challenge for our research is to see the continued development of students' identity and self-efficacy after the summer camp. Although we continued to offer a Saturday STEM program, not many students continued their study. It is important we get some funding to encourage students to continue the program so that we can see the impacts on their STEM knowledge and skills and identity and self-efficacy. Thank you for your question, Scott. 

  • Icon for: Scott Pattison

    Scott Pattison

    Facilitator
    Research Scientist
    May 13, 2022 | 11:35 a.m.

    Very interesting, Shaoan. Thank you for the additional information. I look forward to hearing more about your work in the future!

  • Icon for: Amy Wilson-Lopez

    Amy Wilson-Lopez

    Facilitator
    Associate Professor
    May 12, 2022 | 12:17 p.m.

    It was great to learn more about this project and to see the robots created by the girls. I could easily see how the girls engaged in the "computing" part of the program. I was wondering--how did you teach about the "ubiquitous intelligence" component of the program? Because AI is increasingly present in our society, I'd love to hear if your project had ideas for teaching literacy (or critical literacy) relative to all of the applications of programming and machine learning that are around us on a daily basis. Thanks again for your innovative work.

  • Icon for: Mei Yang

    Mei Yang

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Graduate Coordinator
    May 12, 2022 | 01:51 p.m.

    Amy, Thanks for your comment. The components in ubiquitous intelligence that we taught include Arduino programming and the Internet of Things. Students then applied what they learned in developing projects in intelligent systems related to real-life applications (such as RFID-based attendance checking system, intelligent solar tracking system, smart gardening system, etc.). We are planning to add AI and machine learning concepts to our future training courses. Thanks again for visiting our video showcase.

  • Icon for: Amy Wilson-Lopez

    Amy Wilson-Lopez

    Facilitator
    Associate Professor
    May 13, 2022 | 06:29 p.m.

    Thank you for this response! The AI and machine learning concepts sound like a great addition to an already meaningful curriculum.

  • Icon for: Ann Podleski

    Ann Podleski

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 12, 2022 | 05:18 p.m.

    What an engaging project - and I predict that this will have an impact on what some of these students choose to pursue in terms of education and careers.  Thanks for sharing.

  • Icon for: Mei Yang

    Mei Yang

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Graduate Coordinator
    May 12, 2022 | 06:43 p.m.

    Ann, Thanks for your comment. In 2021, 67% of students indicated that they are likely to choose  STEM disciplines as a college major. We are planning to track the selection of college majors for senior students.

  • Chaohui Huang

    K-12 Teacher
    May 12, 2022 | 09:07 p.m.

    Great for improving Nevada K-12 STEM education

  • Icon for: Mei Yang

    Mei Yang

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Graduate Coordinator
    May 12, 2022 | 09:12 p.m.

    Thanks for your support!

  • Lilly Yang

    Parent
    May 13, 2022 | 09:33 a.m.

    This is a great opportunity for a lot of girls, great idea!! Will truly encourage and inspire young girls in Las Vegas.

  • Icon for: Mei Yang

    Mei Yang

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Graduate Coordinator
    May 13, 2022 | 04:23 p.m.

    Lilly, thanks for your comment.

  • Zhijian Wu

    Researcher
    May 13, 2022 | 12:23 p.m.

    Great project! We need more of this! 

  • Icon for: Mei Yang

    Mei Yang

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Graduate Coordinator
    May 13, 2022 | 04:24 p.m.

    Thanks for the encouragement!

  • Icon for: Katherine Isbister

    Katherine Isbister

    Researcher
    May 13, 2022 | 01:45 p.m.

    Hi, I was wondering if you included any ethics training or discussion in your curriculum? Things like a smart attendance system, for example, might raise these kinds of questions.

    Loved the tiered mentoring approach!

     

  • Icon for: Mei Yang

    Mei Yang

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Graduate Coordinator
    May 13, 2022 | 04:49 p.m.

    Katherine, that's a good question. We will include the discussion of engineering ethics in our future training courses. 

  • Katrina LIu

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 13, 2022 | 02:29 p.m.

    This is a great project to address STEM equity! We need more projects like this!

  • Icon for: Mei Yang

    Mei Yang

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Graduate Coordinator
    May 13, 2022 | 04:22 p.m.

    Katrina, thanks for the encouragement!

  • Yang Jiao

    Graduate Student
    May 13, 2022 | 03:08 p.m.

    An encouraging project for STEM fellows!

  • Icon for: Mei Yang

    Mei Yang

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Graduate Coordinator
    May 13, 2022 | 04:29 p.m.

    Thanks for your comment. 

  • Monika Neda

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 17, 2022 | 02:45 p.m.

    It is so nice to see support for underrepresented groups in our community! Congratulations on your work! I am sure the students had fun doing the projects.

  • Icon for: Mei Yang

    Mei Yang

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Graduate Coordinator
    May 17, 2022 | 03:27 p.m.

    Monica, thank you for the comment!

  • Icon for: Amanda Cellai

    Amanda Cellai

    K-12 Teacher
    May 17, 2022 | 05:10 p.m.

    So much fun creating the solar house. Girls had a great time.

  • Icon for: Mei Yang

    Mei Yang

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Graduate Coordinator
    May 17, 2022 | 05:24 p.m.

    Amanda, thanks for your participation and support.