The YES Teens Prepare for the STEMtastic Camp

Recently the teens in the YES Program’s Aerospace and Engineering components had the unique opportunity to receive training in inquiry-based teaching, classroom management and microaggressions towards people of color in STEAM as part of three professional development sessions in preparation for this summer’s new STEMtastic Camp.

In the first and second sessions, Heather Milo from Washington University’s Institute for School Partnership visited the Taylor Community Science Resource Center to lead the YES Teens in professional development sessions devoted to classroom management and inquiry-based teaching.

Inquiry is a teaching method in which instructors use questions, problems and scenarios to help students actively engage with content through exploration and problem-solving. Students find their own solutions to real-world problems. As part of the session the teens created a plan for the first day with the kids to establish norms and get to know them.

For the third session the teens were joined by St. Louis’s Education Equity Center for a three-hour training session on microaggressions. Sherita Love led the teens in discussions about the importance of recognizing microaggressions—the verbal or nonverbal insults, snubs or slights driven by hostile or negative attitudes toward culturally marginalized groups including people of color and women in STEAM fields—and finding ways of dealing with them. The teens also participated in example scenarios they might encounter, an unfortunate reality that Kerry Stevison, manager of STEAM content for the Community Science department and manager of the YES Program’s Aerospace component, notes the teens are likely to face throughout their lives, both inside and out of the classroom.

(Read more about this summer’s STEMtastic Camp and how Boeing is helping support this new STEAM program for the St. Louis community.)

But even after this summer’s STEMtastic Camp, the tools and skills the YES Teens have learned during these sessions are ones they’ll carry with them throughout the rest of their time in YES and beyond.

“Classroom management skills are a key takeaway for these sessions,” Kerry says, “but so is leading inquiry-based learning.” Alongside the professional development sessions, the teens have been learning the inquiry curriculum—focused on designing gliders—they’ll use for the STEMtastic Camp. “Inquiry is an excellent teaching strategy, especially for STEM topics, but it also teaches the teens to be persistent and to think both critically and creatively.”