What is Project STITCH?

STEM Teaching Integrating Textiles and Computing Holistically – STITCH

STEM Teaching Integrating Textiles and Computing Holistically (STITCH) is a curriculum and professional development project designed to facilitate the development of a curricular approach to STEM content that integrates computer science (both hardware and software applications and development) into STEM curricular content to solve a range of authentic problems across disciplines in grades 6-11. The projects require students to program microprocessors to gather and process the data needed to answer a range of STEM associated questions related to concepts drawn from physics, chemistry, earth science, and life science. E-textiles incorporate elements of embedded computing for controlling the behavior of fabric artifacts. In contrast to conventional wires and breadboards, these artifacts are created using novel materials such as conductive fibers or conductive Velcro, sensors for light, sound, and pressure, and actuators such as LEDs and speakers, in addition to traditional aspects of fabric crafts. By sewing circuits using these materials to produce wearable items (e.g. tee-shirts, backpacks), students engage in designing solutions that are intellectually rigorous as well as culturally and personally meaningful.

The STITCH curriculum provides personally relevant context for learning foundational scientific concepts and the computer programming necessary to engage in data collection and analysis processes to solve real world problems aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards’ (NGSS) emphases on measurement and modeling as vehicles for engaging core concepts.  STITCH also introduces students to science and engineering practices that align directly with careers in electrical engineering and computer science.  

As a medium, e-textiles projects align very well with longstanding calls for more hands-on, project-based science and engineering learning activities in schools (National Research Council, 2012).  Teachers will participate in a four day professional development workshop during which time they will be taught both how to do e-textile projects and how to use them to teach the content required of them as classroom teachers. We will provide teachers with support to cover their travel costs for the professional development experience in a lump sum honorarium and we ask that districts support this effort by providing substitutes for attending teachers.  In addition to providing the teachers with professional development in the form of the workshop, Project STITCH will also provide teachers ongoing PD support to facilitate their success in teaching with these projects. 

 Project STITCH will also outfit up to half of each teacher’s classrooms with the supplies needed to successfully do these projects. Our data analysis will compare learning and affective outcomes of using an e-textiles curriculum with the classrooms that receive the teacher’s traditional instruction. This will allow us to provide schools and administrators data driven recommendations about what projects or curricula are worthwhile expenditures for their schools.  

STITCH projects align specifically with the NGSS standards addressing design and modeling of energy. (e.g. MS-PS3-2, MS-PS3-3, MS-PS3-4) and cross cutting concept 5, Energy and Matter: Flow, Cycles, and Conservation, as well as Common Core State Standards-Math (CCSS-M), and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).  These standards seek to ensure students opportunities to apply scientific principles to “design, construct, and test” issues of energy transfer. The STITCH project directly addresses these standards by allowing students opportunities to iteratively design e-textile projects and test their effectiveness towards goals surrounding data collection and interpretation as set out in NGSS cross cutting concepts focused on modeling and planning out scientific investigations.