STEM cascades: Youth as teachers and mentors

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Join Dr. Eli Tucker-Raymond and Dr. Maria Olivares as they explore how acting as peer mentors helps youth develop relational and personally meaningful science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) identities.

STEM Cascades investigates the ways in which young people construct and develop affiliations with STEM and teaching in their capacity as mentors, facilitators, and curators of STEM ideas and practices among younger youth. We also seek to understand how people design school, afterschool, museum and informal learning environments in which youth, primarily African American and Latinx, are teachers of STEM. We are working closely with schools and out of school time organizations in Boston over three years and surveying youth mentors nationally to answer our questions. We share findings from our preliminary studies.

Co-Principal Investigators on the Cascades project are Dr. Eli Tucker-Raymond, Dr. Maria Olivares, and Dr. Katherine Frankel.

Featured Community Partners:

Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn (L2TT2L)

• Dr. Susan Klimczak – Education Organizer

• Clinton Osula – College Mentor

L2TT2L is a 20 year old maker education program and learning model that engages Boston youth from elementary school through college in the creative possibilities of STEAM (science, technology, engineering and math, using art +design as a bridge. Their social innovation goal is #MakingLiberation. They work to create a critical mass of those Boston youth whose accomplishments and example work to catalyze cultural change in our communities about what is possible to achieve and contribute through STEM. L2TT2L also functions as an education laboratory developing approaches to teaching STEM through participatory design with youth.

Young People’s Project (YPP)

• Arianna Gaston, Umass Amherst – College Math Literacy Worker

YPP was born in an unused science lab at Brinkley Middle School in Jackson, MS, when its founders, eight 8th graders and three Black men in their early 20s, created a “Math Lab,” a space for young people to connect, and support each other in order to learn Algebra. In the Math Lab, YPP employed young people (middle and high school students), who created interactive math games and activities and learned how to organize themselves to use these games to teach their peers pre-Algebra and Algebra, calling themselves Math Literacy Workers (MLWs). Since 1996, YPP has trained and employed thousands of MLWs across the country who want to make a difference in their community, love helping their younger peers with math, and once trained, improve their math skills, and their peers’ skills. Visit typp.org to learn more about The Young People’s Project.

Boston Public Schools Teacher Cadet Program

• Wensess Raphael – Assistant Director of Teacher Development Programs

• Jakai Nelson – currently serving as a College Math Literacy Worker and curriculum co-designer for the YPP program under Teacher Cadet

BPS Teacher Cadet Program (TC) is a district-wide pathway that identifies and cultivates culturally, linguistically and racially diverse high school students who will become the educators of tomorrow. Beginning their freshman year of high school and continuing through college graduation, Teacher Cadet Student-Scholars receive academic support and professional development. Scholars are tracked and supported through their experience exploring the field of education through lesson planning, teacher observations, and tutoring. They gain leadership skills, participate in college visits and conferences, and prepare for a teaching career. The BPS Teacher Cadet Program engages Scholars in monthly meetings, college visits and conferences, and a curriculum focused on teacher education, college access, and leadership development. The model engages students from 9th grade through college graduation.