Q2Work: Supporting learners and educators to develop a competitive workforce in quantum information science and technology

Non-technical Abstract:

In the time of rapidly expanding interest and investment in Quantum Information Science and Engineering (QISE), relevant education and workforce development efforts are becoming critical. This three-year project is designed to accelerate progress across the quantum education community by amplifying its efforts through dissemination, cohesion, and collaboration.

The project will also allow expansion of the Key Concepts for K-12 education, so that the community can work towards integrating QISE into early education. Activities include a website that serves as a hub for the wider QISE education ecosystem, and a plan for a cohesive set of workshops to further the development of age-appropriate K-12 QISE education resources.

Transdisciplinary and convergent connections across the QISE education ecosystem spanning K-12, academia, government, industry, professional societies, and informal education organizations are a central element of this effort. QISE draws from the fields with some of the lowest percentages of underrepresented minority and female students, and this program involves mechanisms to increase participation of underrepresented groups in QISE.

Technical Abstract:

QISE education and the associated research is distinct from quantum mechanics, mathematics, or computer science, but it is not its own field. This activity bootstraps a community of educators, education researchers, and QIS professionals to further develop QISE education, seed new efforts and magnify research in this critical area. Core research and technological progress in QISE depends on supporting this community.

Moreover, planned activities enable the education community to take concrete collaborative steps towards making changes to curricula and implementing tools that increase awareness, intuition, and literacy in quantum information science at the K-12 level and ultimately across all ages and learning environments. Planned activities and outputs are designed to be inclusive, and to build connections with underrepresented groups in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Broadening access to QISE for students of different backgrounds, and increased female and minority representation at the college level are also the goals of this work. An evaluator will assess the project activities and deliverables using methods such as surveys, focus groups, and data analytics collected from web logs. Given the emphasis on facilitating connections across QIS education ecosystem, evaluation protocols will be developed based on a framework for assessing the attributes of collaborative communities.

This project is partially supported by NSF's Discovery Research PreK-12 (DRK-12) program, in the Directorate for Education & Human Resources and Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) through the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities (OMA), Division of Materials Research (DMR) and Division of Physics. DRK-12 seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools.

Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.