In recent years, accelerators such as Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), and Intelligence Processing Units (IPUs) have played a dominant role in speeding up workflows in science and engineering. They provide significant increases in computing power, but scientists need to learn how to effectively use these accelerators. To assist researchers, a training framework, called “Technology Laboratories”, was developed. The Technology Laboratories approach builds on situated learning and constructivism by introducing researchers to new computing concepts by scaffolding with existing knowledge of computing resources like GPUs and Jupyter Notebooks. In this approach, researchers are introduced to the newer computing methods by employing accelerators and interactive technologies familiar to them. The first iteration of the training framework was used to teach researchers how to use different methods of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) through exercises built on familiar computing environments. New accelerator technologies like IPUs have focused on employing these AI/ML techniques, presenting an opportunity to now teach new computing accelerators using AI/ML models as the familiar computing method. Lave and Wenger's model of situated learning through a community of practice is appropriate for this learning. Additionally, Jerome Bruner's constructivist theory is part of the model as researchers are also required to construct their own knowledge about transforming their code and learning to adapt to a new type of hardware as they work through the individual characteristics of their code and research area. In this paper, we demonstrate the success of our training framework in using AI/ML methods to teach researchers about IPUs. We attracted interested participants from all over the United States, and they were able to complete hands-on exercises and run code on IPUs. We also had in-depth discussions with participants about the applications that are suitable for use with IPUs. By providing researchers with the skills and knowledge they need to use IPUs effectively, we are helping to advance scientific research and engineering workflows. Overall, our training framework provides a comprehensive and effective solution for researchers who want to take advantage of the power of novel accelerators in their work.

Spatial visualization is critical in engineering and many other STEM fields. Poor spatial abilities can affect student success in college courses and continue to struggle with tasks in the workforce. Spatial ability, verbal-logical reasoning, and mathematics performance are correlated with each other. Thus, improving spatial ability can improve other areas as well. However, although educators and researchers agree about an increasing need for visualization skills, few educational opportunities existed in secondary schools where spatial reasoning and three-dimensional (3D) printing are combined. Informal learning environments such as summer STEM camps can offer students opportunities to improve spatial skills through a variety of activities. Our research is based on behaviorist and constructivist theories. Both theories recognize the central role of social factors in child development. Constructivist education depends on mutual respect to promote autonomy and reasoning. Althoughchildren can discover things, child development consists in inventing new logical, mathematical knowledge. Behaviorist educators guide children's learning through “demonstration, leading questions, and by introducing the initial elements of a task's solution.” In addition, collaborative learning through social negotiation leads to the co-construction of knowledge. During these summer camps, students worked collaboratively and used social negotiations to construct new knowledge. During a one-week summer camp, students participated in multiple mini -classes centered on spatial relationships. A pre-camp survey was used to assess students' prior work with activities involving spatial skills. The purpose of the study was to determine whether and which of these activities could be correlated with spatial visualization and drawing skills as determined through a spatial drawing activity. We used the Visualization and Drawing Assessment 2 to collect data related to drawing 3D objects accurately. Finally, we scored the data using a specifically designed rubric. We found a moderate correlation with prior activities and the spatial drawing score. Other camp activities were designed to involve students in additional spatial skills activities. The classes were 75 minutes per day over a one-week period. First, flying uncrewed aerial vehicles (UA Vs) gave students experience maneuvering an object in the space of a large, high-ceiling room. To control the UA V, students needed some visualization skills as they moved toward the assigned targeted route. The second class was paper engineering, in which students created pop-up scenes or cards. Students learned several folds to create different types of pop-ups and incorporated these folds in their projects. Creating these 3D paper designsgave students opportunities to visualize and create 3D projects, likely increasing their spatial abilities. The third class was 3D design, in which students used Tinkercad to create a design to be 3 D printed. In the process of creating the design, students rotated the object to see it from different views and perspectives, ensuring adequate printing supports, appropriate scaling, and object completeness. Experience working with 3-D software can improve students' spatial abilities, and better prepare them to study in many science fields.

Spatial visualization is critical in engineering and many other STEM fields. Poor spatial abilities can affect student success in college courses and continue to struggle with tasks in the workforce. Spatial ability, verbal-logical reasoning, and mathematics performance are correlated with each other. Thus, improving spatial ability can improve other areas as well. However, although educators and researchers agree about an increasing need for visualization skills, few educational opportunities existed in secondary schools where spatial reasoning and three-dimensional (3D) printing are combined. Informal learning environments such as summer STEM camps can offer students opportunities to improve spatial skills through a variety of activities. Our research is based on behaviorist and constructivist theories. Both theories recognize the central role of social factors in child development. Constructivist education depends on mutual respect to promote autonomy and reasoning. Although children can discover things, child development consists in inventing new logical, mathematical knowledge. Behaviorist educators guide children's learning through “demonstration, leading questions, and by introducing the initial elements of a task's solution.” In addition, collaborative learning through social negotiation leads to the co-construction of knowledge. During these summer camps, students worked collaboratively and used social negotiations to construct new knowledge. During a one-week summer camp, students participated in multiple mini-classes centered on spatial relationships. A pre-camp survey was used to assess students' prior work with activities involving spatial skills. The purpose of the study was to determine whether and which of these activities could be correlated with spatial visualization and drawing skills as determined through a spatial drawing activity. We used the Visualization and Drawing Assessment 2 to collect data related to drawing 3D objects accurately. Finally, we scored the data using a specifically designed rubric. We found a moderate correlation with prior activities and the spatial drawing score. Other camp activities were designed to involve students in additional spatial skills activities. The classes were 75 minutes per day over a one-week period. First, flying uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) gave students experience maneuvering an object in the space of a large, high-ceiling room. To control the UAV, students needed some visualization skills as they moved toward the assigned targeted route. The second class was paper engineering, in which students created pop-up scenes or cards. Students learned several folds to create different types of pop-ups and incorporated these folds in their projects. Creating these 3D paper designs gave students opportunities to visualize and create 3D projects, likely increasing their spatial abilities. The third class was 3D design, in which students used Tinkercad to create a design to be 3D printed. In the process of creating the design, students rotated the object to see it from different views and perspectives, ensuring adequate printing supports, appropriate scaling, and object completeness. Experience working with 3-D software can improve students' spatial abilities, and better prepare them to study in many science fields.

Spatial awareness, spatial, reasoning, spatial visualization, and spatial abilities are various terms all related to various ideas or aspects of spatial ability. From infancy throughout our life spans spatial awareness is embedded in our lives in ways we do not realize. Spatial reasoning is one of the foundational key concepts in mathematics and has been shown to be highly correlated with success in mathematics overall. Higher levels of spatial reasoning are critical in many STEM fields. However, it is an area in which students struggle for competency. Studies have shown that boys generally are better than girls at spatial relationships, beginning at an early age. It is not clear how much is part of the difference in the ways the brain works and how much is part of the environment and experiences of children at play. However, research shows that spatial abilities can definitely be intentionally developed and improved. Thus, children of all ages could benefit from more intentional experiential learning in areas of spatial ability. Assessing various aspects of spatial reasoning is complex, but there are research-based types of activities that support the development of spatial abilities. Our theoretical framework is based on David Kolb's experiential learning theory. In this framework, a holistic approach is envisioned, recognizing the combination of cognition, environmental factors, and emotions in learning experiences. In a week-long summer camp, activities were focused on various aspects of spatial ability. These included flying drones, paper engineering through popups, and a spatial drawing activity. Each of the activities will be discussed in the context of the various aspect of spatial ability development and the importance of those aspects in STEM fields. Students completed a survey about how important they believed spatial skills were in science, mathematics, technology, and engineering. They reflected on the camp activities and their perception of the use of spatial skills in the camp activities. The results of surveys and reflections will be shared. Concluding, we will discuss ways PK12 teachers and university researchers who work with PK12 programs can promote activities to develop students' spatial abilities.

The full paper describes secondary students’ experience in a summer STEM camp in which they puzzled through and then designed escape rooms. The theoretical framework used is experiential learning as explained by John Dewey (1938). In this methodology, students learn from being immersed in situations that at least mimic real life, if not fully real-life. Educators are challenged to find materials for students to learn within some experience. As successive experiences are integrated, the learning progresses. If the learning is within the capability of the student, curiosity to learn more may be aroused, and the learning continues. First, the students were told how escape rooms work and were put into teams for the escape room activities. The instructors set up escape rooms for the students to try their hand at escaping, and competing in teams to see which team had the shortest escape time. After the students all had the opportunity to try out an escape room, they worked in teams to create their own escape room. Another camp session involved basic cryptograph with ciphers, primarily shift ciphers. A requirement of their designs was to include a cipher somewhere in the design. Students were given lock boxes, numerical, alphabetic, and emoji locks of various kinds to use. They worked through a process of 1) deciding on a theme, 2) creating various challenges and clues, 3) sequencing the clues, 4) creating hints, 5) and setting up the escape room. Finally, the four teams each had the opportunity to escape the other teams’ rooms. The paper will describe more fully the students’ engagement and reaction to the escape rooms as well as the collaborative discussions and learning. Informal learning experiences are an important part of the pre-college learning that engages students and increases their interest in STEM. Escape rooms are a great way to immerse students in collaborative learning and boost their desire to learn more.

This research-to-practice full paper presents a study about capturing student interest in computer science. Constructing new knowledge through doing provides an effective pedagogy to increase interest in STEM fields. Coding has become increasingly more important in most career fields, STEM and non-STEM, as technology advances permeate every aspect of our lives. Summer camps offer informal learning opportunities that allow students to engage in STEM activities collaboratively. This study, using a microcircuit kit to introduce basic coding concepts, is seen through the lens of culture, cognition, and literacy. Common themes when defining culture include united standards, common past, shared linguistics, and collective behavior patterns. Cognition comprises knowing, remembering, and judging with the ultimate goal of problem-solving. The cognition of this informal learning experience focused on coding concepts as related to interacting with a microcircuit kit. Literacy, in general, is based on three components: print knowledge, phonological awareness, and oral language. STEM literacy is the ability to develop fluency in STEM such that an individual can express ideas plainly and persuasively, and challenge personal reasoning and thinking. The theoretical framework combines two ideas: 1) situated learning, from John Dewey's theory of experiential learning, and 2) pathways to STEM. Situated learning-based constructivism, occurs in social contexts where knowledge develops through experience, practice, and engagement. As learners develop meaning, competence, and knowledge, they construct identities through blending culture, cognition, and literacy. Recommendations for facilitating pathways to STEM careers include reducing STEM participation barriers for all students. Also recommended is incorporating technology, demonstrating relevance, using collaborative teamwork to cultivate social support systems, and hands-on activities with investigative learning. The research question was, "What effect did a summer camp experience that included microcontroller kits have on student knowledge of circuitry, microcontrollers, coding, and computing careers?" Rising 7th-12th grade students participated in a summer camp in the western part of the US. They engaged in four mini-courses, one of which was working with microcontroller kits. These kits required students to create circuits that performed actions such as flashing light, buzzers, and pitched sounds. Although some students created codes from scratch, most students downloaded and edited code to perform the various functions. Students (N = 30) completed a pretest and posttest to assess their knowledge of circuitry, microcontrollers, and coding. There were 19 males and 11 females in the study, with foster students, students with learning disabilities, and diverse ethnicities represented. A paired-sample t-test was conducted to determine whether the scores from pre and post were statistically significantly different. Hedge's g effect size was calculated. Mean scores from the pretest and posttest increased from 6.63 to 8.20 and were statistically significantly different (p = 0.018). Hedge's g effect size showed practical significance. Additionally, several students spent extra time at every opportunity, to use their microcontroller kits to expand or create additional projects.

Modeling with 3D computer-aided design (CAD) software to design and print 3D products can improve students' spatial visualization skills, creativity, and problem solving skills. 3D CAD software has been used as a teaching tool in secondary school classrooms since the early 2000s, but it becoming more ubiquitous due to increased affordability of an innovative concept: 3D printing. Yet research about the effect of 3D design and printing on students' academic achievement, problem solving skills, and creativity has been limited. For the present study, the effects of applying 3D CAD software and 3D printing were observed on students' perceptions of their need for creativity when solving problems that could be encountered across STEM careers. Participants (N = 95) were high school students who attended a two-week long STEM summer camp at a university located in central Texas in 2016. Results indicated that the students who participated in the 3D CAD and printing improved their perceptions about creativity and problem solving skills required for STEM disciplines (p <; .01). The effect for the study was impressive with Cohen's d effect sizes for students' perceptions about creativity and problem solving skills in STEM disciplines at d = 0.61 and d = 0.66, respectively. Students who participated in the informal STEM learning and engaged with 3D project-based learning indicated that creativity was important for STEM fields and for engineering in particular. They also indicated that problem solving skills were essential for being successful in a STEM career. Teachers who desire to increase their students' creativity along with their STEM competencies should integrate classroom activities that promote creativity and problem solving while being actively engaged in the activity.

Prospective engineering students often have difficulty with study expectations when transitioning from high school to college. Mathematics is particularly challenging for those who have been successful in high school without needing to study. Engineering mathematics college courses tend to cover twice the volume of material in 60% of the class time of high school mathematics courses. Thus, the need for outside study time is increased drastically, and the time to absorb and practice concepts and skills is reduced. Surveys from students in a summer precalculus program revealed that they understood that their strategies for success in mathematics should change as they transitioned to college. However, they often failed to begin the change while participating in the summer program designed to increase their algebra and precalculus skills in preparation for engineering calculus. The research questions for this study are: 1) For prospective engineering students in a summer precalculus bridge program, how did their expectations of college mathematics study compare with their expectations of high school mathematics study? 2) How well do prospective engineering students in a summer precalculus bridge program begin to change their study habits in preparation for engineering college mathematics?.

Women are underrepresented in STEM fields, and their attrition from the STEM pipeline begins in high school. In this study, the performance, attrition, and course selection of women in mathematics and science subjects were examined in a school where STEM Project Based Learning was introduced. A four-year longitudinal study was conducted. Data from high-stakes tests, course taking patterns, and retention were examined. Results indicated that these women's scores improved in mathematics and science, and more females opted to take physics than did males. Moreover, female student attrition was lower than that of males and decreased markedly after the introduction of STEM PBL to the classrooms. These results indicate that implementing STEM PBL activities in classrooms is promising for improving female participation in STEM.

Mathematics continues to be a major hurdle for engineering students. The authors presented results of a pilot precalculus summer program at FIE 2014. In the current paper, we examined longitudinally the results of the institutionalized version of the precalculus summer program over four years. Students who scored less than 22 on the Mathematics Placement Exam could either a) participate in the personalized precalculus program (PPP) or b) take the fall precalculus course. The research question for this study was: How well did the students who took the PPP perform in the precalculus and engineering calculus course sequence compared with the students who did not participate in the PPP? The PPP included an online study plan with practice problems in common areas of difficulty in algebra and trigonometry and required online tutoring sessions for 30 hours over a six-week period for the first three years and the same number of hours over a three-week period for the fourth year. For this paper, we analyzed the trends over four years of the program to determine whether participants are progressing successfully through the engineering calculus sequence.

Learning experiences in informal Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) educational settings, such as camps, provide significant benefits for secondary students such as awareness of STEM subjects and careers along with increasing enthusiasm, self-efficacy, and content knowledge. To expand the number of students majoring in STEM subjects and entering careers in STEM fields, a two-week summer STEM camp for secondary students (N=31) was held at a Research I University. This qualitative case study followed students through matriculation into a postsecondary STEM major. Camp participants were interviewed to address the following research questions: 1) How did the camp fulfill its purpose and intended student outcomes? 2) Were the purpose and intended outcomes reflected in student perceptions? 3) Did the camp experience influence a student's decision to attend the hosting university as well as choice of major? This camp fulfilled its purpose and encouraged students to attend the host university and major in a STEM field. The anticipated cognitive and social outcomes were reflected in the student's experiences at camp. Informal learning environments, such as the one described in this study, can result in increased achievement, self-efficacy, and interest in STEM along with encouraging students to pursue STEM careers.

The path to success in engineering is through mathematics. In particular, students need to successfully complete an engineering calculus sequence of at least four courses to fulfill their requirements for an engineering degree. With the goal of increasing success in Engineering Calculus I, and consequently retaining engineering majors, the Department of Mathematics at Texas A&M University, through a grant from the National Science Foundation, established a summer program to bridge high school mathematics knowledge to requisite mathematics knowledge for Engineering Calculus I. Of the students who participated in the summer program, 81% raised their scores on the Mathematics Placement Exam (MPE) sufficiently to be cleared to register for Engineering Calculus in the fall. Students who did not raise their score above 21 out of 33, whether or not they participated in the summer program, had to take Precalculus before enrolling in Engineering Calculus L Because Precalculus is primarily taken as remedial preparation for Engineering Calculus I, the purpose of the course is to strengthen mathematics skills needed for the calculus course. As a result of participating in the summer bridge program, students were able to begin the engineering curriculum sooner, saving both time and money for their college education. The program continues to be expanded to provide support for more students throughout the engineering calculus sequence.

Based on research, constructing a program to increase accessibility for students with financial need, and diversity of students graduating with engineering baccalaureate degrees requires multiple components and partnerships to recruit, retain and graduate students. This paper describes how a program at Texas A&M University was initially constructed, how it has evolved, and what influences on student success have been observed.