Meagan is a consultant, developer, and trainer for the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity. Her work for NAPE focuses on equity in and accessibly of STEM education and careers, and currently revolves around 3 areas: STEM career counseling professional development and tools for counselors, equipping STEM career role models, and NAPE’s teacher training program “Micromessaging to Reach and Teach Every Student.”
STEM Career Counseling
Meagan began working with K-12 counselors on STEM Careers in 2008 through High Tech High Heels, while she was an enginer for Texas Instruments. This work inspired her to pursue her PhD in Engineering Education, and she has continued working with counselors since. Now the HTHH projects are managed by NAPE, and Meagan has developed professional development curriculum, and a STEM Career Counseling toolkit. This work has also transitioned into working with community college counselors as well as educators across the education spectrum. Meagan has facilitated dozens of workshops aiming to help improve the accessibility of STEM education and careers for every student.
Equipping STEM Career Role Models
Role models can attract students to STEM careers by sharing personal stories using positive messaging. Meagan has developed a 30 minute electronic training session (STEM Equity for Role Models: Equipping Professionalsto Speak to Students about Careers in Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) that aims to equip STEM professionals to speak to students about careers in STEM. Currently this project is in limited release during pilot stage.
Meagan first became interested in equipping STEM Career role models when she volunteered for a technology speakers bureau when she worked as an engineer. She would regularly go to talk to students, teachers, and parents about what life was like as an engineer. In 2012, Meagan trained a similar speakers bureau on key messages to use when talking to students on STEM Careers. This work is published in the 2013 American Society for Engineering Education Conference Proceedings, and informs her work on the video training sessions.
Micromessaging to Reach & Teach Every Student
The NAPE Education Foundation has developed Micromessaging to Reach and Teach Every Student™—a high-quality, research-based, educator professional development program to address gender- and culturally based implicit biases that occur in the classroom and that are manifested through “micromessages.” This unique program provides participants with an awareness of the power of micromessages, which include looks, gestures, tone of voice, or the framing of feedback that subtly yet powerfully shape our culture, our classrooms, and the individuals within them.
Meagan is a trainer-in-training for the overall curriculum, however she is a developer for the STEM Career Unit. This work is an amalgamation of her work with counselors and role models.
About NAPE
The National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE) is a consortium of state and local agencies, corporations, and national organizations committed to the advancement of equity and diversity in classrooms and workplaces.
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