1. Leslie Herrenkohl
  2. http://depts.washington.edu/uw3dl/about/staff/
  3. Professor, Co_Director 3dL Partnership
  4. STUDIO: Build Our World
  5. University of Washington
  1. Clarke Hill
  2. Youth Services Manager
  3. STUDIO: Build Our World
  4. Neighborhood House
Facilitators’
Choice
Public Discussion

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  • Icon for: Colleen Lewis

    Colleen Lewis

    Facilitator
    Assistant Professor
    May 16, 2016 | 11:59 a.m.

    Sounds like a great project! Can you point us more information about the project? I found this:
    http://depts.washington.edu/uw3dl/post/studio-b...

    - One of the big things I’ve struggled with in out-of-school programs is making sure that students who are underrepresented in STEM don’t opt out of these out-of-school opportunities. How do you address recruitment? For example, how do you ensure girls are participating?

    Thanks!
    - Colleen

  • Icon for: Steve Bean

    Steve Bean

    Enterprise Director
    May 16, 2016 | 12:22 p.m.

    Really good question Colleen! At Digital NEST we’re also working with underrepresented students and we’ve certainly had our challenges with youth opting out! But we’ve also been tremendously successful – for example, our youth Membership is almost 40% female. For us, the “secret sauce” is starting with positive youth development – in particular developing long-term relationships with youth, youth partnerships and creating a space that youth identify with. This takes constant work and commitment, but it works.

  • Icon for: Steve Bean

    Steve Bean

    Enterprise Director
    May 16, 2016 | 12:25 p.m.

    Leslie, I liked your comment in the video about diversity in the field. Because the Digital NEST is working for economic justice, we’re focused on making the argument for diversity in the workplace: http://stemforall2016.videohall.com/presentatio...
    I just read an interesting article about the business case for diversity NOT being the usual argument – immediate benefits to product development, market analysis and innovation – but rather that societies with greater social cohesion tend to be more economically prosperous: https://hbr.org/2016/04/were-making-the-wrong-c...

  • Icon for: Leslie Herrenkohl

    Leslie Herrenkohl

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Co_Director 3dL Partnership
    May 16, 2016 | 04:05 p.m.

    Hi Colleen and Steve,
    Thanks for your great questions and comments to spark discussion and sharing! Building from what Steve said, we also have a strong youth development model at the center of STUDIO that supports relationship building that in turn supports youth recruitment and retention. Our program is located within Neighborhood House, a trusted multi-service community based organization that serves many community needs in addition to youth STEM learning. This is also critical to our success with youth. You can learn more about our model using this link to the STELAR webinar that discussed the recent NSF Smart & Connected Communities Initiative. http://stelar.edc.org/events/stelar-webinar-sma...

  • Icon for: Cullen White

    Cullen White

    Facilitator
    Director
    May 17, 2016 | 02:17 a.m.

    First off, I’m really proud to know that such great work is happening at my alma mater — Go Huskies!

    Secondly, I’m wondering a few things about the curriculum: 1) Who writes the curriculum? and 2) How much influence do students have over its direction?

  • Icon for: Leslie Herrenkohl

    Leslie Herrenkohl

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Co_Director 3dL Partnership
    May 17, 2016 | 07:01 p.m.

    Glad to meet another Husky Cullen! We started off using curriculum developed by our colleagues at the Exploratorium Tinkering Studio and have adapted or built other curriculum over time as youths interests and mentors expertise aligned to create new learning opportunities. Youth have a significant influence on the direction of our activities. They provide input and express interests at many times, but two are most important. The first is in the early phases of settling on a new quarter of work. They help shape the final slate of offerings at that point and then they choose from that list of final options as well. We always have more than one set of activities taking place at the same time. As you can imagine, this places unique demands on our system but it has been a very important goal to directly respond to youth interest while also capitalizing on mentor expertise.

  • Meixi

    Guest
    May 18, 2016 | 11:14 a.m.

    Hello everyone! I’m Meixi, the graduate student on this project. To echo Leslie, we draw a lot from youth ideas and interests and find the “sweet spot” with also the expertise the mentors bring undergraduates in STEM fields.

    This happens both during the planning stages and “in-the-moment” or in the wild during program itself, which I feel is such an important part of the facilitation and development of this work.

  • Icon for: Jean Ryoo

    Jean Ryoo

    Senior Researcher
    May 17, 2016 | 12:54 p.m.

    Great video! I would love to learn more about the way you recruit and support mentors in the program and what learning looks like across the different individuals in the room. I think it is wonderful to hear how mentors both support youth in the program, but also describe learning more about inequities experienced by youth while mentoring in the program. Do you have professional development opportunities for the mentors to support the learning they experience as well?

  • Icon for: Leslie Herrenkohl

    Leslie Herrenkohl

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Co_Director 3dL Partnership
    May 17, 2016 | 07:15 p.m.

    Thanks Jean! Our mentors are incredible. We recruit mentors through UW STEM departmental advisors, through the Dream Project (a college and career mentoring program at UW), through our participation in special events like the Education Day on the Quad, and via social media, social networks, and word of mouth. Most of our mentors are women and people of color. All of our mentors bring personal experiences that motivate them to (in their words) “give back to the community” and “pay it forward.” We provide support for mentors through a credit bearing seminar that provides a space for them to build community, examine inequities in STEM in their own lives and the lives of their mentees, and develop strong mentoring and facilitation skills. We have also used this space to address curriculum adaptation as needed. Mentors come from all different majors and would not necessarily meet one another in other settings. We’ve found that they have really benefited from their community so much so that they tend to stay involved in Studio until they graduate.

  • Icon for: Barry Fishman

    Barry Fishman

    Facilitator
    Professor
    May 17, 2016 | 03:37 p.m.

    What a great project! When it comes to out-of-school learning, I’m a big fan, but also curious how/if you make connections back to what is going on in school. In the spirit of “Connected Learning,” do you make attempts to synchronize what you are doing with what students are learning in school?

  • Icon for: Leslie Herrenkohl

    Leslie Herrenkohl

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Co_Director 3dL Partnership
    May 17, 2016 | 07:56 p.m.

    Hi Barry! Thanks for watching the video and for the important question. We agree that linking learning in and out of school is really important. This can be a complicated process for us because our youth do not always feel fully supported to learn STEM in school. In STUDIO we provide learning opportunities (both content and process) that help them recruit their own personal and cultural resources. We are working hard to explicitly name this work “STEM” and connect it to “STEM” that happens in other parts of their lives. At the same time as we work with youth to see the “STEM in them” across contexts, we also need to connect directly with their teachers to help them learn about the inquiries and projects that the youth are completing in Studio. We haven’t done as much of this as any of us would like but it is something that we have in our sights as an important goal for next year.

  • Meixi

    Guest
    May 18, 2016 | 12:11 p.m.

    Hi Barry,

    Adding in a little to Leslie’s response: One way that I’ve seen it is that youth themselves are beginning to make connections from Studio to Home is through language + artifacts and learning across grades (we often have middle schoolers with high schoolers in program). Sometimes high schoolers will call out a phenomena or concept e.g. the role of fats in relation to cell development. They might try to draw or find words to articulate hypotheses, and say, oh yeah, we learned that in school! Middle schoolers then latch on to some of these drawing or terminology when making their hypotheses as well.

    However we definitely want to do more of this. Other stories of how this happens from other sites/ projects would be wonderful!

  • Icon for: Barry Fishman

    Barry Fishman

    Facilitator
    Professor
    May 18, 2016 | 12:42 p.m.

    Thanks for the thoughtful responses, Leslie and Meixi. I wish there great examples of how to do this… but it’s one of the truly difficult problems. Karen Brennan of Harvard cast it really well in talking about the challenge of introducing Scratch, a programming environment that thrives in informal environments, into school. The tension was between agency (a feature of informal learning) and structure (a feature of formal education). We’re still looking for good ways to balance this tension.

  • Icon for: Barbara Rogoff

    Barbara Rogoff

    UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
    May 20, 2016 | 12:36 p.m.

    Hi Leslie and Meixi, What an important project you folks are doing! The cross-age process that Meixi described is really important, I think, as a way of generating deeper understanding. Barbara

  • Icon for: Leslie Herrenkohl

    Leslie Herrenkohl

    Lead Presenter
    Professor, Co_Director 3dL Partnership
    May 20, 2016 | 01:56 p.m.

    Thanks Barbara. We hope to recruit the cultural resources from communities like you powerfully demonstrate in your video!

  • Icon for: Ann Austin

    Ann Austin

    Professor of Higher Education
    May 23, 2016 | 06:13 p.m.

    I love the commitment that I see in this video from those working with the young people—I hope more community people will learn about such programs and want to contribute.

  • Icon for: Clarke Hill

    Clarke Hill

    Co-Presenter
    Youth Services Manager
    May 23, 2016 | 06:27 p.m.

    Thank you all so much for your interest in our project. It is a project that is truly inspiring to work on. I work for the community based organization, Neighborhood House, and it truly makes a huge difference having the partnership with the University. Having multiple perspectives on this project allows us to address many of the discussed topics and other challenges in unique ways. It is a great program that has had significant impact on the High Point community in a short amount of time.

  • Further posting is closed as the showcase has ended.