FUSE

FUSE A Proposal Submitted to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation by Kemi Jona and Reed Stevens Northwestern University This proposal describes a vision of growth for FUSE. It is based on the astounding interest in the program from a growing number of schools, libraries, and community organizations. FUSE is an informal, drop-in program that is youth-centered, collaborative and participatory, flexible, and modular. In other words, we believe that FUSE can and does serve as a leading exemplar of the concept of ‘connected learning’ articulated by the MacArthur Foundation’s DML community. Our goals for FUSE are ambitious: to create significantly new pathways into and through science, technology, engineering, arts/design, and mathematics (STEAM) learning. Ultimately, we want the FUSE experience to be a game changer that helps young people find interests in STEAM topics, develop expertise as they move through the challenge sequences, and find alternative pathways into STEAM futures. Those futures may involve out-of-school, interest-driven activities, they may involve college, or they may involve pursuing meaningful employment. To achieve this goal we need to effectively provide an alternative learning infrastructure—in the form of diverse and interesting challenge sequences and the web-based tools required to structure and support these challenges—and that is the primary focus of our request for additional funding. In this proposal, we are requesting three years of support necessary to incubate, grow, study, and refine the FUSE program model. During this period, the FUSE team will serve as change agents through providing learning-by-doing design residencies to dozens of key members of the Hive network and other critical partners around the country. This will not only build design capacity among a growing network of partners, but also help advance and refine MacArthur Foundation’s vision of connected lear