How Activity Leaders Can Foster Youth Interest in STEM
Enthusiasm is infectious. A basic way to foster excitement and positive emotion in young people is to model it. Although some ALs have a background in the subject area that they are teaching, they might have lost their enthusiasm for it over time. In this case, it can be helpful to revisit the reasons for choosing to learn about the content. Other ALs do not have a background in the subject area, in which case demonstrating enthusiasm for learning about activity content can be useful for supporting situational engagement.
Youth sometimes perceived science and mathematics as dry and boring, but introducing them to phenomena that illustrate the wonder of science can pique their interest.
Using Phenomena in NGSS-Designed Lessons and Units provides an overview along with useful tools and guides for science educators. Numerous examples of marvels of engineering can be found on the Internet. Ten Strange Structural Engineering Marvels is one source for engineering marvels in the world. Girls + Math = More STEM Women lists 19 creative mathematics activities for middle school youth that are likely to engender a sense of wonder.One way to generate situational interest is to expose learners to something new or unexpected. Doing so can spark the curiosity of youth and can lead to identifying questions or problems that youth may explore in the future. Field trips, demonstrations, and even being exposed to new ideas and phenomena through video, including those freely available through YouTube, are all ways that novelty can be introduced.
Making the ISL experiences fun can foster situational interest. The ALs in high-quality STEM summer programs told us that fun is essential. In our observations, it was evident that the ALs often tried to make the activities educational, meaningful, and fun simultaneously. This approach may be one way ISL programs differ from school because our research in public school classrooms found that when students reported that they were having fun, they also reported that they were not learning. This finding was because many of the fun activities that the classroom teachers planned were for the purpose of fun alone and usually were not designed to educate students about STEM concepts but, rather, to provide a break or reward from learning activities.
Botanic Fun shows middle school youth and their AL talking about and having fun during their experiences in a summer science program.
ALs can maintain situational interest and help it grow into individual interest in several ways.
When youth perceive the activities they do as relevant, they are more likely to develop their interest in a subject area. It is important for ALs to learn about the interests of the participants in their programs. This student interest inventory can help ALs learn those interests relatively quickly.
Another strategy for learning about youth interests, knowledge, and background is self- documentation. This formative assessment strategy helps STEM ALs plan activities and investigations that are relevant to the participants. How to Launch STEM Investigations That Build on Student and Community Interests and Expertise, a STEM Teaching Tools brief, provides information about the self-documentation strategy and how to use it.
The Relevance section of this website has many resources for making the content of ISL programs relevant and for connecting youth with careers.
Creating products can be fun, but ensuring that youth learn and deepen interest requires ALs to help support youth through the design process, which includes helping them realize their ideas and overcome roadblocks and failures they encounter along the way. How Can Making Promote Equity and Excitement in STEM?, a STEM Teaching Tools brief, provides guidance about deliberate strategies ALs can use to further youths’ excitement and learning in the context of making activities.
DIVAS Interest illustrates the first two phases of interest development. The DIVAS program creates situational interest through modeling enthusiasm and providing emotionally satisfying and relevant experiences. ALs continue to sustain that interest by providing resources, materials, and skills and helping participants overcome challenges and deepen their interest.
Many scientists think that curiosity (a synonym of interest) is a quintessential characteristic of humans. Curiosity and interest can be maximized by having students make sense of what they are learning through talking about it. How Can I Foster Curiosity and Learning in My Classroom? Through Talk!, a STEM Teaching Tools brief, explains why and how to nurture student talk and provides several thought questions for educators to consider in their context.
