Northern Illinois University
STEM Interest and Engagement (STEM IE)

Several time-tested strategies contribute to effective lessons and activities:

1. Communicate to youth what they can expect to learn during a session or unit. Focus on what they will know, understand, or be able to do. Explicitly telling them this information helps orient learning. This module on communicating learning goals, from Marzano & Brown’s Handbook for the Science and Art of Teaching, provides valuable guidance.
2. Use multiple instructional approaches to help them learn. Plan various activities that include opportunities to explore, investigate, and participate actively. This clip focuses on learning and connecting STEM concepts in a classroom and during field experiences.
3. Monitor whether the lesson or activity is moving too fast (youth appear confused) or too slow (youth are disengaged) and accommodate accordingly.

Effective ways to promote content understanding include the following:

• Link what youth are learning to their prior knowledge, real-world examples, big ideas (such as infinity, patterns, and homeostasis), and a variety of perspectives. ALs can ask youth to share ideas, knowledge, and examples. This STEM teaching tools brief addresses how to expose youth to multiple perspectives during science activities. The Relevance section of this toolkit provides a wealth of strategies that enhance content understanding through application to the lives of young people.
• Avoid rote learning. Rather, connect bits of knowledge and skill. This self-directed lesson helps ALs learn strategies to connect planned experiences with the previous knowledge and interests of program participants.
• Include nonexamples as well as examples. This webpage from the eLearning Coach provides succinct information on using examples and nonexamples to enhance concept development.
• Provide opportunities for meaningful practice so that they can retain the concepts and be able to use and apply them later. Meaningful practice is accomplished by providing a task in which youth need to make choices and apply knowledge in context. For example, they could practice mathematical operations by calculating distances on a map or in adjusting recipes (doubling, tripling, and halving).

This webinar from Click2Science helps prepare ALs to explore a science concept with youth through using science tools.

Facilitating higher-order thinking and metacognition can be accomplished by

• Having youth generate hypotheses.
• Asking youth to explain their reasoning and solutions.
• Having youth express and reflect on their thinking and progress.
• Using an inquiry approach.
  The Agency section of this toolkit provides guidance and resources to assist ALs in using an inquiry approach.

This video-based learning module focuses on an AL helping youth to construct explanations. Reflection questions about the short videos are included.

This professional development module offered by STEM Teaching Tools focuses on promoting scientific reasoning. There are numerous activities that take about five minutes, which can be selected by users on an as-needed basis. The entire module takes approximately 105 minutes to complete for those who want a more comprehensive program.

• Scaffold. Provide assistance on an as-needed basis. Resist simply telling young people the answer. The AL in this video clip of a summer program describes scaffolding as similar to leaving a “trail of breadcrumbs,” which provides just enough to keep them going.
• Ask youth to explain their ideas, strategies, and solutions. Expand on what youth say and do—provide a bit more information, ask them to say more, and ask for others to add more. This video shows an AL lead youth in talking about what they have been learning and doing.
• Be specific in feedback. The more targeted feedback is, the more clear it is to youth. Tell them specifically what they have done well and discuss with them what they still need to do in order to move forward.
• Encourage youth to persist in the face of challenge. Recognize what they have accomplished so far, acknowledge that it is a challenging task, and tell them you have confidence that they can succeed (perhaps with a little scaffolding) if they keep going. This Click2Science learning module focuses on helping youth learn from failure during an engineering activity; it includes video of the activity and reflection questions.

• Plan and provide opportunities for various discussion formats, such as debating; exploring topics, including generating hypotheses and possible explanations; sharing experiences or observations; and formal student presentations.
• Model and encourage listening.
• Encourage all youth to participate.
• Ask youth to explain/extend what they contribute to a discussion. Ask for evidence, examples, and restatement.
• Be aware of wait time. Many times ALs jump in after a few seconds when youth do not answer a question. However, if a question generates thought it can take up to a minute or two to process and organize a reply. Giving participants some think time is helpful.
• Vary the number of participants in a discussion. Provide opportunities for dyadic, small-group, or large-group discussion.
• Circulate and hold one-on-one conversations while youth do projects.
• Encourage and acknowledge uptake—responding or elaborating on what another participant said.

This online professional development playlist from STEM Teaching Tools focuses on promoting science talk.
This Click2Science Web lesson on asking purposeful questions provides a wealth of information. After completion, users interested in continuing education credit can opt to take a short assessment and receive a certificate of completion for $5.00.

The National Partnership for Quality Afterschool Learning identified productivity as a key feature of high-functioning afterschool programs. Content is best learned in an environment that

• Maximizes learning time.
• Minimizes time spent waiting.
• Has established routines for common tasks and transitions.

Advance planning and preparation are essential for maintaining productive learning environments.

Although not part of this study, based on a host of other studies, we also recommend promoting process quality. It is important for youth to

• Feel safe and supported.
• Form meaningful relationships.
• Experience belonging.
• Participate actively in their own learning and development.

Observational measures of quality mentioned in the What ALs Can Do to Enhance Quality and Facilitate Learning section are often used as part of a formal quality improvement process. You can learn more about those measures by clicking on the links:

• The Youth Program Quality Assessment from the David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality. Sprockets, an organization in St. Paul, Minnesota, aims to help programs think about quality through a cultural lens, using the YPQA as a foundation for those discussions.
• STEM PQA, which is a version of the YPQA specifically for STEM programs.
• Assessment of Program Practices Tool (APT) from the National Institute on Out-of-School Time.
• Dimensions of Success (DoS) is under development by Partnerships in Education and Resilience (PEAR).

These quality measures are often used as part of a formal quality improvement system. Key features of formal quality improvement systems are described in this publication, Building Citywide Systems for Quality: A Guide and Case Studies for Afterschool Leaders, produced by the Forum for Youth Investment with support from The Wallace Foundation. Informal STEM Learning (ISL) systems consisting of more than one program may want to investigate developing a similar quality improvement system.