Table of Contents

Section I: Program Overview

Section II: Progress Report

Program Materials

Mentor Manual

Advisory Board Meeting

Tripod Saturday Workshops

Broadcast Television Production

Evaluation Plan

Section III: Upcoming Events

Appendix: Advisory Board Recommendations

Section I: Program Overview

The Miami Museum of Science, in collaboration with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Miami, has received funding from the National Science Foundation to design, implement and disseminate Tripod, a model program that that will support and empower single-parent families to actively engage their children in science, mathematics and technology education.

Rationale

Although there is widespread consensus that parental involvement in the schooling process is critical to academic achievement, and while active public debate continues over the disintegration of the American family, few parent involvement programs have addressed the social and economic realities of the last few decades‹namely, declining discretionary income, increase of women in the workforce, increase in the number of divorces and the resultant number of children being raised in single-family households.

Tripod suggests an approach to parent involvement that recognizes the reality of family life today and the work demands and time constraints of single parenthood. Recognizing the need for expanded support outside the immediate household The Miami Museum of Science has partnered with Big Brothers, Big Sisters (BBBS) of Greater Miami to link SMT information, resources and advocacy to primarily father-absent homes through the BBBS network of volunteer mentors. Objectives include the establishment of a demonstration program that will:

Obj. 1.0 Enhance and enrich the BBBS match experience through the provision of developmentally appropriate hands-on activities, materials and events that will assist "Bigs" in engaging "Littles" in the process of science.

Obj. 2.0 Utilize Bigs to expand parental awareness and knowledge of community resources that provide science experiences outside of school, as well as tips and activities for promoting science learning in the home.

Obj. 3.0 Strengthen the relationship between under served groups and the science-rich institutions in their communities.

Obj. 4.0 Evaluate impact and seek additional funding support to disseminate effective Tripod strategies and materials to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, other museums, mentoring organizations and parents nationwide.

Section II: Progress Report

(September 1998-March 1999)

To accomplish Tripod objectives, the collaboration has established a demonstration program to serve Miami-Dade County, Florida. During the first funding quarter (July 1998-September 1998) BBBS and Museum based Tripod staff met weekly to develop management systems, refine program strategies, design workshops and develop prototype program materials. In the second quarter (October 1998­December 1998) staff conducted a series of awareness and orientation sessions to stimulate Big Brother/Big Sister interest in participating in Tripod Workshops. The BBBS pilot volunteers, who are working closely with staff on the development and testing of mentor/parent materials, were also selected and focus group meetings were held to obtain early input on material design. During the third quarter of the program year the work of the evaluation contractor was finalized and dialog was initiated with Scott Foresman, the materials publisher. In addition, input from the Advisory Board was received and Saturday Tripod Workshops implemented. In the upcoming quarter (April 1999­June 1999) the pilot group of Big Brothers and Big Sisters will test mentor/parent materials, provide feedback to staff, and assist in redesign as needed.

Status of major tasks:

I. Program Materials

Feedback from mentors and parents was obtained during an initial focus group meeting. Based on this input, three types of activity cards, to be included in a comprehensive publication entitled Science/Math Matters, are being prototyped (see Appendix A for examples). Each set will include activities themed around a science concept and consists of three parts:

Part One: Mentor Card

Part one consists of a Mentor Card which will assist the mentor in exploring science concepts with their Little. As the activities are designed for in-depth exploration, the mentor will need to gather materials and prepare prior to introducing the activity to their Little. To document the experience and guide the inquiry process a form has been provided on the back of the card to stimulate discussion between the mentor and Little.

Part Two: Try This At Home Card

Part two is a Try This At Home Activity Card, which are short two to three minute "dialog starters" designed to reinforce the science concept introduced in the Mentor Card and stimulate conversation around science between parent and child. These activities utilize no cost or low cost materials easily found in the home and provides a real life context for their application. To support these experiences a form has been provided on the back of the card to document discussion between the parent and child.

Part Three: Feedback Form

The feedback form in Part Three is to be completed by the Tripod trio (Big, Little and parent) to rate the level of enthusiasm for and accessibility of the Mentor and Try This At Home Activity Cards. The card is designed to be mailed to the Project Director at no cost to the participants. To encourage feedback, each piece of correspondence received from the trio will earn the participating Littles one points toward a variety of exciting and educational experiences. A reward system based on these points has been put in place as follows:

• 3 points: a gift certificate in the Museum Store
• 5 points: science magazine subscription
• 10 points: one free summer class in the Museum's Summer Science Camp

Further discussion with Scott Foresman regarding publishing and dissemination of Tripod Science/Math Matters activities in their various markets will occur in Years Two and Three of the Project.

II. Mentor Manual

Tripod staff has collected mentor-related resources from a variety of agencies and has utilized the BBBS-Miami Resource Center to research and identify additional materials that have applicable content. In addition, mentors and parents have suggested several topics for inclusion in the training manual. These include:

• Project Rationale/Startling Statistics
• Tripod Mentor Expectations
• Scripted Modeling of Workshop Activities
• Evaluation Strategies
• Science Fair Projects
• Community Resources
• Academic requirements for careers in SMT
• Advocating for your child's education
• Science-related opportunities within Miami Dade County Public School System

On March 6, 1999, project staff met with the parent involvement training consultant Barbara Sprung, Executive Director of Educational Equity Concepts, to review project training plans. The consultant stressed that we increase the number of Tripod-related events that include both parents and mentors in the pilot program. Mrs. Sprung shared that, in her experience, providing joint training to parents and mentors would help parents feel on a par with the mentors and equal to the challenge of engaging their child in SMT experiences. Currently we have included parents on all invitations to our mentor training. This has already proven successful, as to date our pilot group is 43% mentors and 57% parents.

Another suggestion was to provide multilingual materials for the parent. At this time we are analyzing our current audience within the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization to determine the benefits of translating portions of our materials, currently planned for English and Spanish only, into Haitian Creole.

III. Advisory Board Meeting

To ensure broad-based application of the Tripod model, an eight-member advisory board was convened. Invitees for the advisory board meeting included:

Thomas Curtis Director of Evaluation and Information for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Allen Blondell Representative for Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley Ana María López-Ochoa Director of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools Urban Systemic Initiative Dale McCreedy Director of Girls at the Center Program at The Franklin Institute Barbara Sprung Director of Playtime is Science Educational Equity Concepts Stacey Incarnación Mentor Coordinator for Communities in Schools Judy Skipper BBBS Parent representative Allen Blondell Representative for Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley

The meeting was extremely successful with nearly 100% attendance from our invited guests. Each member of the Advisory Board contributed their considerable experience to the review of materials, project format and our upcoming work schedule. In a round robin format all members of the Advisory Board were asked to share their recommendations and concerns with for the project with each other and eventually with the group as a whole. This process was extremely helpful in identifying hidden challenges, achieving consensus and generating enthusiasm for the upcoming activities. Recommendations from the advisory board are included in Appendix B.

IV. Tripod Saturday Workshops

The collaboration between the Miami Museum of Science and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Miami is designed to impact the entire BBBS community. A series of nine workshops geared to three different age groups are currently being delivered. A workshop announcement and monthly "Mark Your Calendar" postcards are sent to notify participants. A detailed description of titles and workshops is below. For workshop attendance sheets, see Appendix C.

V. Broadcast Television Production

The Advisory Board meeting provided direction for the broadcast video. Several elements and strategies were discussed in great detail and will be implemented. They include the following:

• It was determined that mentorship would be the theme, and based on input from BBBS representatives some focus would be on mentor recruitment.

• Music will be used to appeal to specific age groups and demographics. There will, therefore, be several musical styles introduced during the open, close and at segment breaks.

• WTVJ-NBC6, anchor Jennifer Valopi will be the hostess of the project. She is Executive Director of a mentorship program for minority females and her involvement provides instant access to professional women actively engaged in mentorship activities. These women include a U.S. Senator, leaders of major corporations, university professors and other powerful, successful women, actively committed to mentoring youth.

• Research is currently being conducted to identify Bigs and former Littles who have achieved celebrity status as a catalyst for maximizing viewer appeal.

The show script and treatment is in development and is expected to be completed before June 30, 1999. More than one-half of the filming will be completed by end of the fourth quarter. The entire show will be aired during the second quarter of year two.

VI. Evaluation Plan

The Institute For Learning Innovation (ILI), an Annapolis, Maryland-based nonprofit research and evaluation organization, is serving as the third party evaluator of Tripod. On March 6, 1999 two ILI evaluators visited Miami to participate in the Tripod Advisory Board meeting. Immediately following this meeting, formative data collection procedures were put in place. In collaboration with key Tripod staff, ILI evaluators developed feedback forms to assess both the effectiveness of the draft versions of Science/Math Matters materials as well as the Tripod Saturday Workshop Series. Science/Math Matters feedback forms were integrated into the Activity Cards as a fun, easy-to-do component; workshop feedback forms were tailored to the theme of the workshop and integrated into the workshop. Tripod staff will continue to implement these feedback forms for activities and workshops throughout the project.

On June 5, 1999, an ILI evaluator will again visit the Miami Museum of Science in order to select approximately eight pilot trios to serve as intensive case study subject throughout the project. The evaluator will conduct in-depth, face-to-face interviews with each member of these trio groups in order to better understand their motivations for participating in Tripod, their background and experience with science, and the nature of the mentor's, parent's and child's roles in supporting science learning. During a second site visit, scheduled for the Fall, ILI will work with Tripod staff to analyze and interpret formative data collected thus far. For a sampling of evaluation instruments used in the project, see Appendix D.

Section III: Upcoming Events

April 1999-July 1999

In the final quarter of Year One, Tripod staff will concentrate on planning the next two training sessions, scheduled for June 5, 1999 and September 25, 1999. Our focus for these upcoming sessions will be to expose parents and mentors to the range of resources available to Littles within the public school system and the greater Miami-Dade community. Ana María López-Ochoa, an advisory board member and the USI Director for Miami-Dade County Public Schools, is helping to guide our efforts to identify these resources and recruit specialists who can answer parent questions.

Project staff will continue to present exciting hands-on science to the BBBS community during the remaining two Tripod Saturday Workshops, while continuing to collect evaluation data. The development and scheduling of Year Two workshops will also take place in this quarter. In addition, development of two additional sets of Science/Math Matters Activity Cards will continue and the Museum's graphics department will work with project staff to give a Tripod look and feel to all program materials. T-shirts for program participants have been ordered and staff looks forward to wearing them with pride at a variety of upcoming Tripod and BBBS events. In Year Two, development of the Mentor Manual will continue as we compile successful training strategies from the Year One experience into our working outline. Project staff will assimilate new recruits while continuing to provide topical information to our veteran participants. Also scheduled for the first quarter of Year Two is a meeting with BBBS social workers currently managing our trio of participants. The meeting will focus on ways to increase the trios' participation as well as providing them with the opportunity to share additional information.

Video

Recommendation: Create three content segments which can be repurposed for promotional, broadcast and recruitment opportunities. Focus will be on the rewards of mentoring. The video should include information and footage of Tripod mentors, BBBS mentors and other mentoring organizations in Miami.

Action Steps: A timeline needs to be established for broadcast/promotional video. Tripod Mentor Training.

Recommendation: Discontinue the use of the term "Broker" when identifying mentor participants; an agreed-upon alternative is "Tripod Mentors". Key to the success of this training will be establishing an awareness of "What Science will be in the 21st Century" and the relevance of encouraging science exploration as early as possible.

Action Steps: Including the rationale and steps taken during development of the four activities would assist the participants in providing useful feedback. Emphasize How-To's for parents. The goal of this section would be to assist parents in defining their role as facilitators of science learning. These directed tips would challenge the development team to help parents change their attitudes through a greater awareness of their daily interaction with and use of SMT. Provide an incentive for parents to attend training events and to return evaluation materials.

Fostering Parent Involvement

Recommendations: Establish a base of information with which the trio of participants are comfortable by including parents and children in Tripod mentor training. Utilize the parents as recruiters when approaching potential participants. Transportation may be a barrier to parent participation. Provide opportunities for parents to get to know one another. Action Steps: Engage parents, mentors and Littles in hands-on experiences during Tripod mentor training. Take these opportunities to model the asking of open-ended questions and demonstrating Inquiry Based Science. Create a special museum membership category for the Trio of participants. Possible membership category names include "Active Family Membership" and "Tripod Team Membership".

Toolkit Development

Recommendation: Increase awareness of the audience to which Tripod is directed and possible formats that will help Tripod materials better reach that audience. Research backpack model distributed by Silver Burdett Ginn. Currently being used in classrooms, the backpack components can be used in a center with in the classroom or can be taken home or can be taken out separately. Mentor organizations could include this type of backpack in their lending libraries.

Action Steps: Design Mentor Manual format to have similar feel to the BBBS training materials. The use of the same or similar format and packaging should facilitate integration of Tripod into ongoing BBBS trainings.

Dissemination Strategies

Recommendations: Develop both print and electronic methods to facilitate ongoing communication with potential national partners. Identify essence of project to assist with distributing Tripod to other mentoring organizations and science rich institutions. Create a model which can be franchised by defining what can and can not change. Focus on potential rewards for science-rich institutions. While it is clear what mentoring organizations will gain from this type of partnership, the benefits to the Science Rich Institution require more clarification. Explore funding options. Seek out existing Museum programs that would welcome an integration mentoring organizations.