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This qualitative study chronicles one of the fundamental pillars of the Curriculum and Community Enterprise for Restoration Science (CCERS). The professional development is focused on curricula that are grounded in the community-based environmental restoration of the waterways of New York Harbor. Centered on the restoration of the native oyster population, hundreds of New York City public school teachers take part in this experience with the intent of increasing their own place-based pedagogical content knowledge and skills. Most of the participants teach in school with populations that are underrepresented in post-secondary STEM majors and STEM related careers. Professional learning activities for teachers and community scientists were offered throughout the 2021 calendar year. Professional Learning Activity Surveys were administered and teachers responded to questions about how they participated in CCERS events, the ways in which CCERS participation has impacted their teaching practice, whether they use CCERS activities for student research, and ways CCERS participation impacts student STEM career interest. An intended outcome is to instill a STEM identity in students identifying as URM and to bring STEM career awareness to these students. More than 72% of the teachers in the professional development sessions agreed that the professional learning activities were effective in providing new STEM content knowledge and best practices for teaching. The majority also reported that the sessions enabled them to increase their students’ engagement with STEM and interest in STEM careers.
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Toward a Theory of Youth Pedagogical Development: How Young People Learn to Teach.
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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- Award ID(s):
- 2000511
- PAR ID:
- 10613562
- Editor(s):
- NA
- Publisher / Repository:
- NA
- Date Published:
- ISSN:
- NA
- ISBN:
- 0000000000
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Chicago IL
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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This study explores how young people, aged 14-22, employed as facilitators of math learning for younger children in an out-of-school time organization, talk with each other about their experiences as they participate in a routine known as “debriefs.” Debriefs occur between facilitation sessions and allow opportunities for youth to discuss mathematical ideas and understand their roles as facilitators. They also provide space for youth to begin planning the next facilitation. Through interaction analysis of one typical debrief session, we offer implications for understanding how debriefs contribute to the unique ways that young people develop their pedagogical approaches—a process we call “youth pedagogical development.more » « less
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This practice-oriented chapter highlights Math CEO, a university–community partnership at UC Irvine that connects middle school students from Santa Ana Title I schools with undergraduate mentors for weekly sessions of math enrichment. Its relationship‑driven mentoring, asset‑based curriculum design, and intentional integration of social‑emotional learning provide concrete strategies for building capacity in inclusive informal STEM education. Relevance and Implications for Practice: This chapter provides a practice‑based model for identifying and implementing culturally‑responsive informal pedagogical practices (CIPPs) in STEM afterschool programs. A mixed‑methods research study at Math CEO has documented reciprocal benefits: youth gain confidence, enjoyment of math, and early exposure to college life, while mentors develop instructional skills, self‑efficacy, and an interest in teaching or community‑focused careers. These dual impacts align closely with the grant’s goals of understanding how CIPPs influence both youth and afterschool staff, as well as building long‑term capacity for high‑quality, research‑informed informal STEM programming.more » « less
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Abstract BackgroundElementary educators are increasingly asked to teach engineering design, motivating study of how they learn to teach this discipline. In particular, there is a need to examine how teachers reason about pedagogical situations and dilemmas in engineering—how they draw on their disciplinary understandings, attention to students' thinking, and pedagogical practices to support students' learning. Purpose/HypothesisThe purpose of our qualitative study was to examine elementary teachers' pedagogical reasoning in an online graduate program. We asked: What stances do teachers take toward learning and teaching engineering design? How do these stances shift over the course of the program? Design/MethodWe identified two teachers, Alma and Margaret, who exhibited productive shifts in their pedagogical reasoning during the program. Drawing on interviews and videos of their teaching, we developed case studies characterizing their stances toward teaching and learning engineering. ResultsAlma shifted in her reasoning about teaching the design process, from treating it as linear, discrete steps to recognizing the dynamic, overlapping nature of design practices. Similarly, Margaret shifted in how she reasoned about failure and iteration, recognizing the need to help students analyze unexpected design performances to learn from and iterate on their designs. For both teachers, these shifts were dynamic and nonlinear, reflecting both context‐sensitivity and growing stability in their reasoning. ConclusionsEngineering teacher educators should provide opportunities for teachers to reason about the specific pedagogical dilemmas in engineering and consider how teachers integrate disciplinary understandings with attention to students' reasoning and actions and pedagogical practices.more » « less
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People often rely on knowledgeable teachers to help them learn. Sometimes, this teaching is direct: teachers provide in- structions, examples, demonstrations, or feedback. But other times, teaching is more subtle: teachers construct the physi- cal environment in which a learner explores. In the present research, we investigate this more subtle form of teaching in an artificial grid-based learning environment. How do people construct the physical environment to teach, and how does the (pedagogical) design of the physical environment affect peo- ple’s learning? Study 1 shows that people pursue multiple ap- proaches to pedagogical environment design. Study 2 shows that learners make systematic, often accurate inferences from pedagogically designed environments, even in the absence of exploration. Together, these studies add to our understanding of the myriad ways in which experts communicate their knowl- edge to novices—a camore » « less
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