Project Recap

In collaboration with Pueblo Collab LLC, ILI examined how practitioners, researchers, and communities can build more equitable partnerships in informal STEM learning, with particular attention to how power dynamics shapes collaboration.

Project Description

Building healthy and inclusive partnerships is central to our work at the Institute for Learning Innovation (ILI). This project explored how informal STEM learning practitioners, researchers, and community partners can form equitable and inclusive partnerships in support of lifelong STEM learners.

In partnership with Pueblo Collab LLC., a community-centered consulting organization, ILI engaged in sustained reflection on how power dynamics influence research-practice collaborations. The work created space to examine assumptions, roles, decision-making structures, and whose voices are prioritized in partnership settings. Over time, the collaboration expanded to include additional partners in dialogue about how power operates within informal STEM learning initiatives.

Although the project concluded earlier than anticipated due to grant terminations by the National Science Foundation, the process generated important insights. Our work underscored that equitable partnerships require intentional relationship-building, recognition of one another’s lived experiences and expertise, and ongoing attention to partnership culture.

Together, we developed and iteratively refined shared Culture Commitments to guide our collaboration. Revisiting and revising these commitments throughout the project reinforced that direct conversations about expectations, values, and power are essential to fostering authentic and inclusive STEM learning partnerships. Relationship-building, we found, is not a one-time activity but an ongoing practice that must be nurtured throughout the life of a partnership.