This study conceptualizes “brokering pre-professional learning opportunities” as a practice that goes beyond facilitating access across settings to include concerns about when, exactly, an opportunity is “safe enough” as a fundamental question when connecting youth to opportunity. Utilizing a design-based research approach, we report results of an organizational ‘vetting’ routine used to assess companies being considered as work-placement sites for youth of color. Our findings confirm that characteristics of staff diversity and equity orientation of work-placement organizations can support or hinder positive learning outcomes. However, we also found that both strengths and limitations in terms of diversity and equity, in concert with other supportive factors, can be productive resources within the context of future goal setting for youth of color. We close with implications for researchers and designers interested in promoting equity-oriented cross-setting learning. As learning scientists have theorized learning as a cross-setting phenomenon (Banks et al., 2007), the question of how to equitably support productive connections across settings has become a focal point for intervention design (Acholonu, Pinkard & Martin, 2015). One practice, that of brokering learning opportunities from one setting to another, has emerged as a key form of support for cross-setting learning pathways that sit within a larger framework of Connected Learning (Ching et al., 2016; Ito et al., 2013). However, the practice of brokering can easily be misunderstood as one that rests solely on an assumption that access to new learning opportunities is the only challenge to be addressed in order to support equitable learning pathways (Vossoughi, 2017). However, for non-dominant youth interested in various disciplinary pathways, opportunities brokered to them may themselves not be considered by youth or educators to be places that are productive, comfortable or ‘safe.’ Often, this can be connected to lack of representation of non-dominant groups in those industries and limits in terms of companies’ orientations to equity and pro-social concerns within their organizational activities and business models. This study is based in a research-practice partnership focused on developing brokering routines across learning settings within Hive NYC, a network of informal education organizations focused on digital learning. We report results from a design partnership with one organization, Scope of Work (SOW), which addressed issues of access to and transformation of creative industries in terms of under-represented youth. SOW’s approach to brokering focused on not only considering issues of access, but also on assessing various characteristics related to diversity and equity of the settings they were ‘brokering into’ – the workplace sites they planned to match with their youth. Our cross-organization team co-designed and tested an organizational ‘vetting’ routine that could be used to assess the potential of a workplace to provide a positive early employment experience for youth of color. Because of SOW’s organizational focus, all workplaces in the study were associated with creative sectors. This analysis considers two factors the vetting routine focused on: How were organizational characteristics of staff diversity and equity orientation consequential to positive early workplace experiences of non-dominant youth of color? The pilot summer program, framed as a fellowship, involved five youth of color aged 16-21. Each was placed at a company in the creative sector including a high-end fashion brand, a hip-hop and electronic music record label, and three design and branding studios. This analysis utilizes data from three of the youth, including semi-structured interviews with the youth, with supervising employees at each of the work placement organizations as with SOW staff and, finally, observations of weekly activities SOW staff facilitated with the youth participants where youth discussed their week’s work experiences. Three findings emerged with regards to the role of staff diversity and equity orientations in organizations. Two were more straightforward and tracked with SOW’s design conjectures that were indexed in the vetting tool about the consequentiality of the focal factors – that relative strengths and limitations in terms of diversity and equity orientations could contribute to positive and negative youth workplace experiences, respectively. ICLS 2018 Proceedings 1671 © ISLS In the case of Mateo, an 18-year-old Dominican American, diverse leadership at his placement contributed to a positive orientation towards his work placement, to positive relationship development with staff, and to shifted conceptions related to diversity and business leadership. In talking about Rob, the company’s CEO, he shared: “When I first started learning about business, I had this image of a CEO: In a corporate building, with a suit on, and you know, like bougie [short for ‘bourgeois’], like ‘don’t talk to me you peasant!’ [jokingly]. So then when I talk to [Rob]... he listens to rap music, I listen to rap music, he plays basketball, I play basketball. It’s cool to see that you don’t have to change, and be some type of robot to be successful.” Likewise, the experience of Sean, a 20-year-old African-American, provided additional confirmation of the importance of staff diversity. He shared that, for him, “there sure was not a culture fit” with staff at the record label he was placed at. He saw a lack of shared class background as hindering the formation of social bonds with staff through common interactions like ‘water cooler’ conversations; “If you can't relate, how are you going to jump into the conversation?”. The final case was the most notable, and unexpected, in terms of the ways that diversity and equity orientations of partner organizations played into youth’s socio-political professional goal-setting. Eve, a 21-yearold identified as female, African-American and Puerto-Rican-American, was one of two women of color within an organization led by three white men with the rest of the staff made up of white cis-female interns. Her case highlighted distinct ways that both strengths around as well as weaknesses related to staff diversity in her workplace setting were utilized as a resource within her process of identifying what kind professional setting she wanted to be in in the future with regards to workplace diversity. Additionally, a perceived lack of equity orientation in the business model of the company Eve was placed in — a brand strategy firm called Signal that served corporate clients to promote their businesses —was leveraged as she affirmed and specified her plans around her professional future, plans that involved more explicit orientations to addressing issues of equity and celebration of black identity. She shared with us, in terms of these corporate clients, that “my voice and the work that I want to do is not for them. [...] I want to be a part of something that's celebrating community... what it means to really be a human being, and a black human being, in America.” The final case of Eve led us to conclude that both strengths and limitations of learning settings in terms of diversity and equity orientations, in concert with the support to understand such experiences from a critical and socio-political lens, can be productive resources within the context of future goal setting for youth of color. Within efforts to promote cross-setting learning for non-dominant youth, this study highlights the importance of broadening approaches to brokering from a purely access-orientation to include an equityorientation concerned with the nature of the opportunities being organized for youth. In particular, in confirming conjectures that diversity and equity orientations of workplace environments can consequentially impact outcomes, it highlights the need for care and consideration when considering whether an opportunity is ‘safe enough.’ At the same time, findings show that limitations, along with strengths, can be productively utilized within youths’ socio-political professional goal setting. The finding confirms existing research on the importance of sense-making supports set outside of work placement sites (Bronkhorst & Akkermen, 2016), of supporting youth to critically ‘read’ the dynamics at play within a work environment (Diemer & Blustein, 2006) and of extending critical youth development approaches into workplace learning settings (Ginwright & Cammarota, 2002). Given that reality, the answer to the question of “when is it safe enough?” likely depends, in some part, on what kinds of supports non-dominant youth have to engage with a worksite through critical and socio-political lenses.

As momentum grows to expand K12 Computer Science (CS) education, associated public narratives often assume core questions about why CS should be taught to all students have been sufficiently answered. Having clarity around the core purposes that varied stakeholders are envisioning is critical to ensuring the coherence of CS4All initiatives. This study presents a framework examining the range of arguments for and projected impacts of CS education programs. Based on data drawn from a researcher- facilitated participatory knowledge building process involving 26 CS education stakeholders who articulated 161 arguments, we identify seven areas of impact present in arguments for universal CS education: (1) economic and workforce development, (2) equity and social justice, (3) competencies and literacies, (4) citizenship and civic life, (5) scientific, technological and social innovation, (6) school improvement and reform and (7) fun, fulfillment and personal agency. Findings show that individual arguments and visions for CS education often reference multiple impact areas. We intend for this framework to support reflection by CS education stakeholders to consider how their current initiatives index different ideologies about what CS4All projects are meant to achieve.

This chapter offers methodological strategies for distributed Research– practice partnerships (RPPs) that operate in such multi-organizational, nonhierarchical contexts. It centers on key dynamics of distributed RPPs. The chapter distributes organizational networks as requiring specialized routines but also providing new ways to engage in joint work. It explores four aspects of RPPs as they play out in a networked context: negotiating the focus of joint work, the nature of problems addressed within joint work, building collective orientation toward the focus of joint work, engaging in collaborative design and knowledge building around problems of practice associated with joint work. The chapter explores how some characteristics of a distributed RPP context intersected with the ways that joint work unfolded between researchers and practitioners in Hive NYC. It aims how the network could be leveraged to effectively circulate ideas across organizations, engage in collaborations, and build collective knowledge.

Purpose - This article makes a case for the importance of brokering future learning opportunities to youth as a programmatic goal for informal learning organizations. Such brokering entails engaging in practices that connect youth to events, programs, internships, individuals and institutions related to their interests to support them beyond the window of a specific program or event. Brokering is especially critical for youth who are new to an area of interest: it helps them develop both a baseline understanding of the information landscape and a social network that will respond to their needs as they pursue various goals. The paper aims to describe three critical levers for brokering well in informal settings: creating learning environments that allow trust to form between youth and educators and enable educators to develop an understanding of a young person's interests, needs and goals; attending to a young person's tendency (or not) to reach out to educators after a program is over to solicit assistance; and enabling potential brokers to efficiently locate appropriate future learning opportunities for each young person who approaches them. The authors also include a set of program practices for providers who wish to increase their brokering impact, as well as recommendations geared primarily toward organization leaders. The authors hope that this paper brings clarity and enhanced significance to the practice of brokering as a strategy to support youth pathways toward meaningful futures.Design/methodology/approach - Insights presented here are the result of a participatory knowledge building and sharing process with a community of after-school providers known as the Mozilla Hive NYC Learning Network. The topic of discussion was how these providers might continue to support young people in their intensive project-based programs after the program was over. The authors of this article, acting as embedded research partners to Hive NYC, contributed insights to these discussions based on ethnographic fieldwork and case studies of high-school-age youth in the Hive NYC context.Findings - The authors articulate a set of brokering practices and a conceptual model that communicates how brokering might lead to valued long-term outcomes for youth, including increased social capital.Originality/value - The intent is that information and perspectives from this article will inform youth-serving practice and serve as a catalyst for further conversations and activities geared toward promoting youth pathways of learning and identity development.

Purpose - This article makes the case that the education community can learn from professional learning and innovation practices, collectively called "Working in the Open"(or "Working Open"), that have roots in the free/open source software (F/OSS) movement. These practices focus on values of transparency, collaboration and sharing within communities of experimentation. This paper aims to argues that Working Open offers a compelling approach to fostering distributed educational professional networks that focus on co-constructing new projects and best practices.Design/methodology/approach - Insights presented here are based on three sources: expert perspectives on open source work practices gleaned through interviews and blog posts, a qualitative case analysis of a collaborative project enacted by a group of informal learning organizations within the Hive NYC Learning Network, a community of over 70 youth-facing organizations in New York City, as well as an overview of that network's participation structures, and, finally, knowledge-building activities and discussions held within the Hive NYC community about the topic in situ. From these sources, the authors derived general principles to guide open work approaches.Findings - The authors identify five practices deemed as central to Working Open: public storytelling and context setting, enabling community contribution, rapid prototyping "in the wild", public reflection and documentation and, lastly, creating remixable work products. The authors describe these practices, show how they are enacted in situ, outline ways that Hive NYC stewards promote a Working Open organizational ecosystem and conclude with recommendations for utilizing a Working Open approach.Originality/value - Drawing from the F/OSS movement, this article builds on standard practices of professional learning communities to provide an approach that focuses on pushing forward innovation and changes in practice as opposed to solely sharing reflections or observing practices.

This paper examines how a tangible interface facilitates gesture-mediated spatial reasoning during collaborative problem solving, as evidenced by sensitivity to emergent spatial patterns within a complex system simulation of a watershed. We tested the interface against two non-tangible input comparison conditions (singleand multi-mouse) to control for access differences. To determine if groups’ solutions displayed sensitivity to emergent spatial patterns, we constructed a quantitative “dynamism” measure, and found that solutions produced in the tangible condition were significantly more spatially sensitive. To better understand why, we conducted a case study by selecting two representative participant groups and performing qualitative multimodal analyses of participant speech and gesture. Our findings indicate that the tangible interface’s greater affordance of gesture allowed participants to express concepts containing both spatial and temporal properties, with the added benefit of increasing the agency of less-verbally participatory group members to explore and contribute their ideas more equitably.

One consequence of rapid advances in computer technology is the obsolescence of hundreds of millions of computers each year. This paper explores strategies for increasing the reuse of outdated computers through an investigation of an 8-bit home computer that is still popular in developing countries. We observed the use of the computers in 16 households in Ahmedabad and Bangalore, India in order to gain insight into the contextual factors that support the continued popularity of the device. While most computers become obsolete in less than a decade, this 30-year-old computer technology remains useful because it provides exciting, multi-user family entertainment. While having minimal processing power and virtually no connectivity, the 8-bit computer supports input and output channels that are especially suited for co-located social game play. In contrast, PCs are primarily designed for individual use. Therefore, we offer low-cost design recommendations that would enable outdated PCs to support greater shared use and increased utility within the constrained material context of low-income households. These simple interventions, if adopted by computer refurbishment industries, have the potential to significantly extend the useful lifespan of PCs.

Traditional experimental paradigms have focused on executing experiments in a lab setting and eventually moving successful findings to larger experiments in the field. However, data from field experiments can also be used to inform new lab experiments. Now, with the advent of large student populations using internetbased learning software, online experiments can serve as a third setting for experimental data collection. In this paper, we introduce the Super Experiment Framework (SEF), which describes how internet-scale experiments can inform and be informed by classroom and lab experiments. We apply the framework to a research project implementing learning games for mathematics that is collecting hundreds of thousands of data trials weekly. We show that the framework allows findings from the lab-scale, classroom-scale and internet-scale experiments to inform each other in a rapid complementary feedback loop.

Researchers and instructional designers are exploring the possibilities of using video games to support STEM education in the U.S., not only because they are a popular media form among youth, but also because well-designed games often leverage the best features of inquiry learning. Those interested in using games in an educational capacity may benefit from an examination of the work of video game designer Will Wright. Wright designs through a constructivist lens and his open-ended, sandbox games (SimCity, The Sims, Spore) present wide "possibility spaces'' that allow players to exercise their critical thinking and problem solving skills. His games invoke a delight in discovery that inspire creative acts and interest-driven learning both during and outside of the game. Finally, he reminds us that failure-based learning is a viable strategy for building expertise and understanding.

Time pressure helps students practice efficient strategies. We report strong effects from using games to promote fluency in mathematics.

This paper presents evidence describing how a single player typing game, designed for use on a low-cost (~US$10) computing platform, was utilized as a computer-supported collaborative learning activity. The group computer interaction was found to consistently induce verbal language experiences that extended the potential educational utility of the highly limited 8-bit computing platform. Building on these experiences, we describe some of the design implications for promoting participatory learning with video games, particularly in lowincome households and developing contexts.

Title Page Title: Abstract Body Background / Context: In 2008, the National Mathematics Advisory Panel stated: " the most important foundational skill not presently developed appears to be proficiency with fractions. " In response to numerous studies describing the challenges faced by American students in fractions learning, in 2010 the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) released a practice guide for " Developing Effective Fractions Instruction for Kindergarten through 8th Grade. " This practice guide strongly advocates the use of number lines for improving students' understanding of fractions (Siegler et al., 2010). Teachers in America tend to use part-whole representations of fractions (e.g., pizza slices) as opposed to number lines, which are a more common instructional tool in Asian Number lines are also used as assessment tools for measuring number sense. Notably, recent work by Siegler, Thompson, and Schneider (in press) shows that the accuracy of number line estimation with fractions correlates with standardized test scores in 6-8

This chapter considers ways to harness the potential of mobile technologies for learning in children. Mobile technologies, combined with high-quality teaching, authentic assessment approaches, and extended learning beyond the school day, have unique potential to help children develop important new skills they need to succeed in the 21st century. Based on their ubiquity, low cost, and familiarity, the anytime, anywhere availability of mobile devices can support deeper learning opportunities and promote a more integrated 360-degree learning experience for children. Mobile technologies can help practitioners assess and monitor student progress while building new tools for effective instruction, and create personalized experiences that can help integrate informal and formal learning Mobile technologies also have the potential to reach and inspire populations of children from economically disadvantaged communities and those who are geographically isolated. However, there are substantial design and market challenges to the effective use of these technologies. Multisector leadership is needed to connect disparate efforts by research, industry, and policy professionals. Through industry innovation and policy incentives, mobile technologies may support learning in new and profound ways.

In Con8 rat mammary epithelial tumor cells, the synthetic glucocorticoid dexamethasone stimulates the remodeling of the apical junction (tight and adherens junctions) and the transepithelial electrical resistance (TER), which reflects tight junction sealing. Indirect immunofluorescence revealed that dexamethasone induced the recruitment of endogenous Ras and the p85 regulatory subunit of phosphatidylinositol (PI) 3-kinase to regions of cell-cell contact, concurrently with the stimulation of TER. Expression of dominant-negative RasN17 abolished the dexamethasone stimulation in TER, whereas, dexamethasone induced the reorganization of tight junction and adherens junction proteins, ZO-1 and β-catenin, as well as F-actin, to precise regions of cell-cell contact in a Ras-independent manner. Confocal microscopy revealed that RasN17 and the p85 regulatory subunit of PI 3-kinase co-localized with ZO-1 and F-actin at the tight junction and adherens junction, respectively. Treatment with either of the PI 3-kinase inhibitors, wortmannin or LY294002, or the MEK inhibitor PD 098059, which prevents MAPK signaling, attenuated the dexamethasone stimulation of TER without affecting apical junction remodeling. Similar to dominant-negative RasN17, disruption of both Ras effector pathways using a combination of inhibitors abolished the glucocorticoid stimulation of TER. Thus, the glucocorticoiddependent remodeling of the apical junction and tight junction sealing can be uncoupled by their dependence on Ras and/or PI 3-kinase-dependent pathways, implicating a new role for Ras and PI 3-kinase cell signaling events in the steroid control of cell-cell interactions.

Glucocorticoid hormones, which are physiological regulators of mammary epithelium development, induce the formation of tight junctions in rat Con8 mammary epithelial tumor cells. We have discovered that, as part of this process, the synthetic glucocorticoid dexamethasone strongly and reversibly down-regulated the expression of fascin, an actin-bundling protein that also interacts with the adherens junction component beta-catenin. Ectopic constitutive expression of full-length mouse fascin containing a Myc epitope tag (Myc-fascin) in Con8 cells inhibited the dexamethasone stimulation of transepithelial electrical resistance, disrupted the induced localization of the tight junction protein occludin and the adherens junction protein beta-catenin to the cell periphery, and prevented the rearrangement of the actin cytoskeleton. Ectopic expression of either the carboxyl-terminal 213 amino acids of fascin, which includes the actin and beta-catenin-binding sites, or the amino-terminal 313 amino acids of fascin failed to disrupt the glucocorticoid induction of tight junction formation. Mammary tumor cells expressing the full-length Myc-fascin remained generally glucocorticoid responsive and displayed no changes in the levels or protein-protein interactions of junctional proteins or the amount of cytoskeletal associated actin filaments. However, a cell aggregation assay demonstrated that the expression of Myc-fascin abrogated the dexamethasone induction of cell-cell adhesion. Our results implicate the down-regulation of fascin as a key intermediate step that directly links glucocorticoid receptor signaling to the coordinate control of junctional complex formation and cell-cell interactions in mammary tumor epithelial cells.

Beta2-chimaerin, a member of the GTPase-activating proteins for the small GTP-binding protein p21Rac, possesses a single cysteine-rich domain with high homology to those implicated in phorbol ester and diacylglycerol binding in protein kinase C (PKC) isozymes. We have expressed beta2-chimaerin in Sf9 insect cells using the baculovirus expression system and determined that, like PKCs, beta2-chimaerin binds phorbol esters with high affinity in the presence of phosphatidylserine as a cofactor. Scatchard plot analysis using the radioligand [3H]phorbol 12,13-dibutyrate revealed a dissociation constant of 1.9 +/- 0.2 nM for beta2-chimaerin. Likewise, beta2-chimaerin is a high affinity receptor for the bryostatins, a class of atypical PKC activators. A detailed comparison of structure-activity relations using several phorbol ester analogs revealed striking differences in binding recognition between beta2-chimaerin and PKCalpha. Although the diacylglycerol 1-oleoyl-2-acetylglycerol binds with similar potency to both beta2-chimaerin and PKCalpha, the mezerein analog thymeleatoxin has 56-fold less affinity for binding to beta2-chimaerin. To establish whether beta2-chimaerin responds to phorbol esters in cellular systems, we overexpressed beta2-chimaerin in COS-7 cells and monitored its subcellular distribution after phorbol ester treatment. Interestingly, as described previously for PKC isozymes, beta2-chimaerin translocates from cytosolic to particulate fractions as a consequence of phorbol ester treatment. Our results demonstrate that beta2-chimaerin is a novel target for the phorbol ester tumor promoters. The expansion of the family of phorbol ester receptors strongly suggests a potential for the "non-kinase" receptors as cellular mediators of the phorbol ester responses.