STEM Education Center Toolkit

About the ToolkitThere are as many ways of organizing the activities and people of a center as there are centers. But that doesn't mean that there aren't some common lessons to be learned. Each section of the Toolkit draws on the real experiences of centers to illuminate guidance and best practices in a particular area of activity.

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A presenter at the conference "STEM Smart: Lessons Learned From Successful Schools" hosted by Drexel University and sponsored by NSF, , the Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education, nonprofit organization EDC and the National Academies.

Communicating Vision and Mission

Time spent developing vision and mission statements is an investment in success, but being able to communicate that vision and mission is just as important.

Organizational Structures

There are as many ways of organizing the activities and people of a center as there are centers. But that doesn't mean that there aren't lessons to be learned.

Funding and Resources

There are multiple, interconnected parts to funding and supporting center activities. Each is important and needs to be understood in terms of how all of them play together as a system.

Graphic of the ADDIE Model of Instructional Design. ADDIE stands for Analyze, Design, Development, Implement, Evaluation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADDIE_Model

Evaluation and Assessment

It is critical to develop and execute a plan to assess and evaluate the effectiveness of a center's programming and activities. Short and long term evaluation will help you to adjust your programming to best suit the needs of your stakeholders.

Two people shaking hands.

Building Partnerships

Regardless of size, scale, or mission and vision, all STEM centers require strong and diverse partnerships for success.

Communication Strategies

With the right communication strategies, every STEM Center can effectively communicate with its network about its importance, programs, participant support, and policy impact.

STEM DBER Resources

This listing of existing disciplinary resources is a first step in creating a cross-disciplinary STEM DBER community that works to share knowledge and theory that promote learning and success for all students across STEM fields.

About the Toolkit

Over the course of several workshops, the NSEC community has recognized areas where there is expertise available in the network that should be shared more widely. At the 2016 Workshop in San Antonio, participants synthesized guidance on these 5 topical areas from essays and stem center profiles submitted by network members. The sixth section on Communication Strategies was added after the 2018 working meeting.