SBIR Phase I:BrainSTEM

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to design and develop the BrainSTEM Network, a breakthrough eLearning solution designed to overcome national deficiencies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and other fundamental academic competencies. Today's antiquated, largely pre-Internet pedagogy fails to empower educators with course creation tools needed to rapidly and economically re-author curricula for the increasingly interactive digital age. Student learners, in turn, endure the absence of effective, engaging or motivational online learning experiences they demand to keep pace with technology's rapid advance and compete for precious attention span. This research seeks to design and develop a working prototype of the BrainSTEM network-based on innovative instructional designs and functional requirements for a transformational course authoring system. The research focuses on the functional tool design required to build educational game-enriched STEM courses that integrate with social networks and online communities. The anticipated Phase I results include completed technology designs, functional prototypes of authoring tools and social network interfaces, as well as a demonstrable STEM content module. BrainSTEM will enable a comprehensive renovation of curricular content, academic publishing, course delivery and pedagogy as they have existed in the United States since the advent of nationwide public education nearly 100 years ago. Today, the 21st-century digitization or 'Internet enablement' of education is long overdue despite growing economic pressure on educational institutions and a national, if not global, focus on academic competency. BrainSTEM offers the two-fold promise of (1) reinventing education and academic publishing for the Internet age by empowering educators with breakthrough self-publishing tools and (2) promoting viral learner motivation across a demographic of students rapt in electronic games, social networking and wireless devices. Public and private education in the United States reflects roughly $1 trillion in national spending, of which the vast majority is consumed by labor costs. The commercial opportunity for BrainSTEM centers on its ability to help mitigate escalating labor costs using uniquely effective and engaging online courses as a complement to instructor-led education. Information technology enjoys a well-established role, go-to-market and business model in education but only now can revolutionize the commercial value, social appeal and underlying efficacy of curricular content itself.