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1. Toward a Theory of Youth Pedagogical Development: How Young People Learn to Teach.

   Yu, X; Gaston, A M; Freeman, C; Frankel, K K; Tucker-Raymond, E; Olivares, M C; Houston-King, A; Gutierrez, J M (April 2023, NA)

   NA (Ed.)

   This article introduces the concept of Youth Pedagogical Development (YPD), defined as an ongoing process of youth learning to teach other youth as they engage with academic knowledge and pedagogical strategies. To conceptualize and provide empirical support for YPD, we look at three case studies with community-based organizations that teach young people how to teach and mentor in STEM. We examine how youth’s teaching, mentoring, and learning from other near-peer youth transforms how youth identify as STEM teachers, learners, and doers. We propose that this development of youth teaching other youth creates more humanizing learning spaces where Black and Brown youth feel supported, cared for, and agentic. 

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2. In the Black Mirror: Youth Investigations Into Artificial Intelligence: In the Black MirrorYouth Investigations Into Artificial Intelligence

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3484495  

   Lee, Clifford H.; Gobir, Nimah; Gurn, Alex; Soep, Elisabeth (April 2022, ACM Transactions on Computing Education)

   Over the past two decades, innovations powered by artificial intelligence (AI) have extended into nearly all facets of human experience. Our ethnographic research suggests that while young people sense they can't “trust” AI, many are not sure how it works or how much control they have over its growing role in their lives. In this study, we attempt to answer the following questions: 1) What can we learn about young people's understandings of AI when they produce media with and about it? 2) What are the design features of an ethics-centered pedagogy that promotes STEM engagement via AI? To answer these questions, we co-developed and documented three projects at YR Media, a national network of youth journalists and artists who create multimedia for public distribution. Participants are predominantly youth of color and those contending with economic and other barriers to full participation in STEM fields. Findings showed that by creating a learning ecology that centered the cultures and experiences of its learners while leveraging familiar tools for critical analysis, youth deepened their understanding of AI. Our study also showed that providing opportunities for youth to produce ethics-centered Interactive stories interrogating invisibilized AI functionalities, and to release those stories to the public, empowered them to creatively express their understandings and apprehensions about AI. 

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3. Designing for future action: How STEAM programming can support youth engagement in community changemaking projects

   Hurley, M.; Rhinehart, A.; Bell, P.; Brown, A.; Price, N.; Roche, J. (January 2022, Connected science learning)

   Murphy, B. (Ed.)

   A key form of scientific literacy is being able to leverage the knowledge, practices, and commitments of ethical science to everyday civic matters of social consequence. Learning how to engage in civic life in equity-focused ways needs to be intertwined with learning disciplinary—or transdisciplinary—knowledge and practices. In this article we discuss how an art-science learning program at Science Gallery Dublin in Ireland supported subsequent civic participation by adolescent youth. Using longitudinal case studies of young people, we document how they became agents of change in their homes, schools, and wider communities over several years after participating in the program. This work provides insight into how specific design features of informal learning environments help launch or expand the science-linked identities of youth interested in participation in civic life and social action. These cases also illustrate how to develop educational models that support young people to take informed action toward matters of community and environmental consequence, a key aspect of building a more sustainable and thriving future. 

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4. Learning About Algorithm Auditing In Five Steps: Scaffolding How High School Youth Can Systematically and Critically Evaluate Machine Learning Applications.

   Morales-Navarro, L; Kafai, Y B; Vogelstein, L; Yu, E; Metaxa, D (June 2024, ISLS)

   Hoadley, C; Wang, C (Ed.)

   While there is widespread interest in supporting young people to critically evaluate machine learning-powered systems, there is little research on how we can support them in inquiring about how these systems work and what their limitations and implications may be. Outside of K-12 education, an effective strategy in evaluating black-boxed systems is algorithm auditing—a method for understanding algorithmic systems’ opaque inner workings and external impacts from the outside in. In this paper, we review how expert researchers conduct algorithm audits and how end users engage in auditing practices to propose five steps that, when incorporated into learning activities, can support young people in auditing algorithms. We present a case study of a team of teenagers engaging with each step during an out-of-school workshop in which they audited peer-designed generative AI TikTok filters. We discuss the kind of scaffolds we provided to support youth in algorithm auditing and directions and challenges for integrating algorithm auditing into classroom activities. This paper contributes: (a) a conceptualization of five steps to scaffold algorithm auditing learning activities, and (b) examples of how youth engaged with each step during our pilot study. 

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5. Examining youth participation in ongoing community and citizen science programs in 3 different out-of-school settings

   https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2022.2078480  

   Ghadiri Khanaposhtani, Maryam; Ballard, Heidi L.; Lorke, Julia; Miller, Annie E.; Pratt-Taweh, Sasha; Jennewein, Jessie; Robinson, Lucy D.; Higgins, Lila; Johnson, Rebecca F.; Young, Alison N.; et al (January 2022, Environmental Education Research)

   We investigated youth participation in three Community and Citizen Science (CCS) programs led by natural history museums in out-of-school settings. Using second generation Activity Theory, we looked at repeated participation over time, collecting and then qualitatively analyzing ethnographic fieldnote observations on focal youth participation and components of the activity systems. We found each program provided multiple and unique access points for youth to participate in environmental science. Further, when facilitators emphasized the scientific goals of the programs clearly and repeatedly, youth participation in the scientific processes of the CCS programs deepened. Access to scientific tools, facilitation in using them, and repeatedly applying them in authentic research, enabled youth to participate in different aspects of CCS, from exploring to submitting biological data. Repeated participation in CCS activities provided the opportunities for youth to try the same type of participation multiple times (intensification), as well as provided the opportunity for youth to try different types of participation (diversification). Our findings suggest that repeated participation in authentic scientific research in CCS contexts fosters youth development of new roles and possible development of environmental science identities. 

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