About the Institute for Science and Math Education
Since 2008, the University of Washington Institute for Science and Mathematics Education has created partnerships to envision, cultivate, and study equity-focused educational models and practices in areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). We do this work across the K-12 grade span and across formal and informal learning environments. We believe that all young people should be able to decide their own futures. Their opportunity to learn in STEM fields plays a critical role in their opportunity to do so now and in the future. We develop innovative projects that seek to deliver on this goal and closely study them to develop knowledge about how to broaden participation in STEM. The Institute is strongly affiliated with the Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center.
We are guided by three core strategies in our work:
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We create and maintain deep, mutually-beneficial collaborations between STEM educators, STEM disciplinary experts, learning scientists, and community organizations.
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We build educational practice upon the strongest research-based consensus accounts of STEM learning and teaching as it occurs within and across formal and informal environments.
- We challenge ourselves, our partners, and the STEM education communities to transcend long-standing patterns of inequity in STEM learning.
Our partners include classroom teachers, school districts, informal educational organizations, non-profit educational organizations, content and media producers, and numerous individuals and organizations with rich disciplinary expertise in STEM across the university community and our region and state.
Institute Themes Associated with Broadening Participation in STEM
The R&D projects in the Institute focus on the following themes in order to promote educational equity:
Contemporary STEM Knowledge and Practices
We engage learners in activities that are rooted in contemporary STEM practices so they can learn core ideas of STEM through extended apprenticeships, citizen science efforts, and project-based investigations.
Equitable Learning Environments
Working from an equity perspective, we use the interests and practices of communities as assets in the design of inclusive learning experiences. Our designs integrate the learning of STEM with the lives of youth in ways that are personally consequential.
Improvement at System Scale
We support change in learning organizations through integrated professional development, teacher research, and technical assistance. Our projects focus on increasing capacity to deliver and sustain powerful learning with expanding numbers of youth over time.
Contact Information & Directions
University of Washington Institute for Science and Mathematics Education
1100 45th Ave NE, Suite 200
Seattle WA 98195
(206) 221-6149
http://ScienceMathPartnerships.org/
DIRECTIONS: The Institute is located in the LIFE Center about four blocks NW of the University of Washington, Seattle campus. We are in the building on the NE corner of NE 45th St and 11 Ave NE in Seattle, on the second floor above the BECU Credit Union. There is parking available below the building, accessed from 11th Ave NE (the west side of the building).