Collaborative Problem-solving Using a Cloud-based Infrastructure to Support High School STEM Education

This paper discusses a challenge-based, collaborative, community-situated STEM learning environment CSTEM that is aligned with the next generation science standards. In CSTEM, students synergistically learn STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and CS (Computer Science) concepts by solving realistic problems that provide a framework for applying scientific and engineering practices. A recent study conducted with 26 high school students in middle Tennessee showed that our approach resulted in the students making significant learning gains in both fundamental STEM and computational concepts. Furthermore, they were successful in working collaboratively in small groups to find good solutions to an overall challenge problem on optimizing traffic flow through adjacent city intersections. We discuss how students worked through the two components of the CSTEM system: CTSiM (Computational Thinking using Simulation and Modeling) and CSuMo (Collaborative Cloud-based Scaled up Modeling), present the experimental study we conducted, and discuss the results in detail. We end the paper with a summary of our accomplishments, and directions for future research.