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2011 Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn Description

INTRODUCTION. Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn is a socially innovative out-of-school-time (OST) program that uses multi-level mentoring to create acritical mass of Boston youth who are fundamentally engaged in emergingscience and technology. We believe that this critical mass of 3,000-5,000

youth (5-10% of Boston Public School enrollment) can catalyze culturalchange in our community about what is possible to achieve and can increasethe number of youth of color who go on to study science, technology andengineering in college. We are also preparing a new generation of inventorswho understand that science and engineering innovation should include asocial factor.

Over the past nine years, we have offered meaningful paid work to over 250Boston teenagers as they learn, build and teach with emerging science andtechnology. Through our collaboration with the MIT Media Laboratory, theseteenage youth teachers are exposed to students, research and resources at

the Media Lab as they learn. To gain confidence and competence, youthteachers then work in small teams to buildprojects that solve a communityissue they think important. Finally, these youth teachers serve asambassadors and mentors, teaching what they have learned aboutemerging science and technology to elementary and middle school youth atdozens of community organizations across Boston. We also have asuccessful Hub model to help community organization partners develop theirown capacity to offer science and technology programming. Over the pastnine years our youth teachers have shared their enthusiasm for science,technology, engineering and math with nearly 3,000 children at over 25housing developments, community centers, churches and youth agencies

while teaching hands-on project-based science, technology and engineeringactivities.

Our multi-level mentoringapproach is based on the belief, that althoughcaring adult mentors can serve important roles, the reality is that peerinfluence can be equally if not more powerful. When the influence isnegative, this power is at the root of many problems facing young people.Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn works to harness this powerful influencepositively to engage young people in science, technology, engineering andmath. Returning youth teachers mentor and train new youth teachers. Allthe youth teachers mentor and teach younger children. We also believe that

while mentoring certainly happens between individuals, the power of a groupto mentor and form a support web can often be crucial in preventingindividuals from falling through the cracks. Because our youth face so manychallenges, we work to build an inclusive support community of seasonedcaring adults, young people, education institutions and communityorganizations throughout our city.

What sets us apart from other science, technology and engineeringprograms for youth is our approach in connecting technologies of the

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earth with technologies of the heart. Technologies of the earth isare the technologies that we use to get and shape resources from the earthin a way that advances our human development, allowing access to thingsthat would improve the quality of life and our ability to relate to the planet.Technologies of the heart are those technologies that bring out the best inus, enhance our relationship with each other so that each persons gifts canbe shared. Many of our youth of color are still struggling because the workof the freedom movement is not yet been completed, in particular,significant forces in the media (pervasive negative images of youth) andtheir schools (low expectations and achievement gaps) present obstacles totheir developing self-esteem and to the possibility of their developing astrong belief in their capacity to learn and thrive. Addressing these strugglesthrough efficacy work is a big part of what we do. For instance we helpyouth learn strategies for getting smart, help youth develop confidenceand a sense of competence, and help youth to see failure as an opportunity.The second technology of the heart that we instill in youth teachers is theimportance of innovating and inventing solutions that address problematic

issues in our community and of sharing what they learn. Youth teachersbuild socially conscious projects and ask the young people they teach, Whatdid you learn that you can teach someone else?

The long term significance of Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn can be seenthrough the number of youth who go on to study STEM fields in college andreturn to mentor the next generation of teenage youth teachers. It can alsobe seen in the number of youth teachers who return for a second, third orfourth year and the number of elementary and middle school youth who goon to become the new generation of youth teachers. Long-term significancecan also be seen as our community organization partners develop the

education capacity to offer their own programs as Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2Learn Hubs. This pipeline of youth and community organizations is preparingthe next generation of inventors and STEM mentors.

We are now working with MITs Center for Bits and Atoms to replicate ourmodel across the international Fab Lab network. Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2Learn has been written about, discussed and presented in both popularinformal education enterprises such as Make Magazine and TEDKidsBrussels, as well as in formal academic efforts like MIT dissertations,academic texts and the ACM Tangible Embedded & Embodied Interactionconference

BACKGROUND. Over 85% of Boston public school students are youth ofcolor. Longitudinal research demonstrates that students of color are as likelyas white students to show interest in careers in science, technology,engineering and math, yet they eventually run into problems that keep themfrom pursuing those interests.1 Boston students are faced with a troubling

1Schmidt, Peter. (2006, April 11) Study blames obstacles, not lack of interest, for

shortage of black and Hispanic scientists. Chronicle of Higher Education.

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convergence of underperforming schools, 2 persistent achievement gapsalong lines of race/ethnicity and income,3 a culture that does not rewardacademic success, and lack of access to the latest science and technologyideas and tools.4 Conventional approaches to STEM learning in schools is notworking well for our youth of color.

Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn grew out of our belief that, while we supportthe slow and steady efforts of Boston Public Schools to address these issues,it is unconscionable to stand by and do nothing while our youth suffer in themeantime. Research findings suggest a correlation between frequentattendance in OST activities and positive outcomes, including an increase inacademic achievement5 and that attending high quality science,technology, engineering and math (STEM) afterschool programs benefitsyouth through improved attitudes toward STEM fields and careers;increased STEM knowledge and skills; and higher likelihood of graduationand pursuing a STEM career.6

There is an imminent shortage of professionals with skills in science,technology and engineering in the United States. Our youth of color havebeen historically underrepresented in these fields and represent an untappedpotential for rejuvenating them. By developing a network of near peermentors of color, as well as exposing youth to both technologies of earthand technologies of the heart, we can make steps towards closing andfilling the gaps in schools and in the STEM field.

PEDAGOGY. Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learns pedagogy combines thelearning theory of constructionism with longstanding and successfulcommunity and youth development practices. Constructionism is a learning

approach developed by Dr. Seymour Papert that focuses on thereconstruction of knowledge, especially by building things, rather thansimply the transmission of knowledge devoid of a compelling context. Dr.David Cavallo, co-founder of Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn, worked with Dr.Papert to adapt constructionism for K-12 STEM learning. The theory claimsthat youth learn best as they design and build things that are publicentitities. Public, because for the greatest learning to happen, the youthmust both share their design process and what they make with others.

2Based on a September 2008 Massachusetts Department of Elementary and

Secondary education report, 100 out of 143 Boston Public schools wereunderperforming, failing to meet achievement standards established by the state

under No Child Left Behind.3Boston Indicators Project, Boston Foundation

http://www.bostonindicators.org/Indicators2008/Education/AtAGlance.aspx?id=108724Confirmed byLearn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn Final Youth Teacher Evaluation

Surveys 2007-2011.5American Youth Policy Forum (2006. January). Helping youth succeed through Out

of School Time Programs. Washington, DC: American Youth Policy Forum.6Afterschool Alliance (2011, September). STEM Learning in Afterschool: An analysis

of Impact and Outcomes. Washington, DC: Afterschool Alliance.

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Constructionism blends well with the practical and research-based youth andcommunity development insights of Learn 2 Teach. Teach 2 Learn co-founderMel King, who has over 60 years experience in community and youthdevelopment practice in Boston and beyond. Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learnwas designed to reflect the responsibilities of adults to youth advocated byhistorian-social activist Vincent Harding. We have a responsibility to provideyouth with: a psychologically and physically safe environment; meaningfulwork that contributes to the community; and cultural practices that transmitsthe seeds of values they can live by. Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn bothprovides a safe social culture of responsibility that accompanies themeaningful work and community service youth engage in, and introducesthem in to a culture of making things --- being the maker of ideas,innovations and inventions; being able to both explain and document theirwork so that others can see how they did it and replicate what they haveaccomplished; getting and giving helpful feedback to move ideas andprojects forward and being able to see failures as important learning

opportunities.

We know it is important to involve youth of color in learning science,technology, engineering and math at an early age because historically thishas not happened. We have high expectations for our youth teachers andtreat them in a professional way. Teachers get paid to teach, so our youthget paid and we expect them to deliver. And we are not the only ones withhigh expectations. The elementary and middle school youth they teach havehigh expectations and often confront our youth teachers with questions thatmotivate them to learn more! Just as our name says, they Learn 2 TeachandTeach 2 Learn!

PROGRAM STAGES. After recruiting and selecting teenage youthteacher/mentors and community organization partners, Learn 2 Teach,Teach 2 Learn operates in three stages that correspond to our approach tobuilding a community of mentors: learning. building, teaching.

RECRUITING and SELECTING: January - March. Recruiting andselecting community organization partners, college mentors and teenageyouth teachers occurs from Mid-January through March each year. Webelieve that an active practice of inclusion is the most important way to builda community that can both mentor and receive mentoring. Our city-wide

vision means that we actively recruit community organization partnersto represent the Boston neighborhoods most in need of education resources.In the past two years, we have not needed to recruit college mentors, as 3-4 former youth teachers contact us each year expressing their desire toreturn.

We recruit teenage youth teachers who represent Bostons neighborhoods,schools, and ethnic groups, as well as a diverse level of academic success.We believe that it would be very easy, yet undesirable, to select youth

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strictly on formal educational merit. We specifically target the inclusion ofyouth who may be underachievers in a formal education environment, butwho show evidence of extraordinary intellectual potential. We have learnedthat many of these youth would not necessarily read or respond to literatureabout our program, so mentoring has been integrated into our recruitingmethod. We employ a word-of-mouth strategy where a network of over 250youth workers all over the city are willing to talk to one or two youth theyfeel would benefit from and be a benefit to Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn andpersonally hand them an application. These youth workers often help withfilling out the application and help the teenage youth to both deliver theapplication and get to their interview.

Our inclusive vision also means that all applicants receive an invitation to agroup interview in late March. When arriving at the interview, prospectivenew youth teachers are greeted by experienced, returning youth teacherswho explain more about what the program has meant to them and ask theprospective youth teachers a series of questions designed to learn more

about each of them. Returning youth teachers and staff collaborate to selecta cohort of new youth teachers; those who are not selected are usuallyencouraged to apply the next year (and often do).

Spring LEARNING: April June. For twelve weeks in April, May and June,our new youth teachers spend 4-5 hours every Saturday learning andexploring different emerging technologies and sciences. Learning sessionsare alternatively held at the South End Technology Center @ Tent City and atthe MIT Media Lab. In addition to the learning sessions, youth teachers taketours of the MIT Media Lab and get exposed to cutting edge research andprojects like CityCars, that are changing how we interact with the world. One

of the Saturdays is spent participating in a wind-power design challenge withteenagers from across the world called EurekaFest, sponsored by theMuseum of Science and the Lemelson-MIT Program. Going to the Museum ofScience in Boston twice last year was a powerful experience as fewer than10% of last years youth teachers had ever visited the Museum of Science inBoston. Part of our role as mentors is to expose the youth to interestingplaces that can shape their interest in science, technology, engineering andmath.

In the learning sessions, we use the latest research-based science andtechnology teaching methods and apply an integrated STEM subject

approach. Theoretical information is communicated largely through hand-onproject-based activities organized by our staff, college mentors (formeryouth teachers now in college) and exceptional youth teachers (who havebeen in the program for at least a year). Youth teachers acquire skills suchas design, experimentation, computer programming and algorithm building.Youth also learn web tool development and media techniques as theydocument their learning, teaching and projects on our wiki(www.learn2teach.pbworks.com).

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The modules we teach include: computer programming through buildinganimations and games; physical programming of inventions that usesensors and actuators; alternative energythat includes introduction topower/electricity as well as solar, windpower and hydrogen fuel celltechnologies; graphic design of personalized images and objects; and,digital design and fabrication using our Fab Lab, which is equipped with anumber of computer-controlled machines that can turn an idea into reality.

In our final evaluation surveys, when we ask about the difference betweenhow youth teachers learn in school and in Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn, newyouth teachers often report that learning from and getting mentored bypeers is important to them. Typical comments from this year include: InL2TT2L, you learn it from someone your age and its helpful, because they probably experienced the sameproblems as you. When you learn in school, the teachers teach you one way and sometimes it doesn'talways work. So in L2TT2L, they connect it back to true life and teach you in different ways if you don'tunderstand it. (Jenny); andIt was different because I learned from my peers who seemed to be moreunderstanding. They also did not try to establish a hierarchy like classroom teachers, I greatly respectedthat. (Williston)

Summer PROJECT BUILDING: July August. Youth work 20-24 hours aweek during the summer months. We begin the summer with a three-weeksession during which youth teachers develop confidence and demonstratetheir hands-on competency with the emerging sciences and technologiesby collaborating in small groups. Each small group designs and builds aproject that addresses a problem in the community that they believe isimportant. The projects involve at least three emerging sciences andtechnologies. Staff, college mentors and volunteers from the engineeringand maker communities are paired with each project group. Each grouppresents their daily progress and shares design obstacles both in circle-up

meetings and through our documentation wiki in order to receive feedbackand suggestions.

Past youth projects have included an outdoor solar powered charger,available to anyone in the community, that can charge cellphones, iPods andgaming devices; a levee/buoy system that uses infrared lights to detect floodwater levels that could help address issues that were associated withHurricane Katrina; an urban aquaponic garden and fish system thatautomatically regulates water flow; an interactive truth chair to helppeople explore the truth about gun violence in the community; an iBedmattress pad sewn through with conductive thread and sensors that keeps a

wake-up alarm going off until a person actually gets out of bed and stays out(especially important for teenagers who oversleep and are late to school);and a see saw that acts as a game controller for a cooperative online pingpong game that gets more children onto playgrounds by integrating populargaming into the equipment.

Projects are presented and demonstrated at an end-of-summer project expo,so that people in the community can come see and appreciate what ouryouth have accomplished. On our final evaluation surveys, Youth teachers

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report that the project expo is important, saying that it shows kids arethinking ahead for the future,andputting their minds to work,that it is anopportunity for youth teachers to show off their creations to the rest of thecommunity and give them new ideas.

Summer and Afterschool COMMUNITY TEACHING: July August andOctober -- April. Later in the summer, youth receive training in inquiry-based teaching and develop 3-4 childrens activities for each module. In thelast three weeks of the summer, youth teachers teach to learn, movingtheir skills out into 20-25 community organizations to share what they havelearned and serve as science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)ambassadors to 500+ youth aged 8-13. These community organizationsinclude housing developments, community centers, churches, and youthagencies. Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn often offers communityorganizations their first access to meaningful science and technologyprogramming; out of more than 30 community organization partners wehave had over the years, only 4 have had the capacity to offer children any

other type of STEM enrichment programming themselves. In fact, last yearthe Boston City Council recognized our contribution to the city by presentingour youth teachers and community organization partners with Resolutions ofAppreciation at a formal City Hall ceremony.

The creative activities youth teachers design range from using resistancesensors with computer programs to play a banana peel; to graphicdesigning your own 3D monster; to Lasercutting a glowing name tag bypress-fitting an LED and battery using computer-aided design; to buildingand racing model fuel cell cars, to making solar squishy circuits withconductive play dough while learning about renewable energy; and to

animating my name with color and music using computer programming.At the end of each learning session, the children and youth teachers circleup and answer two questions: What did you learn today? and What canyou teach someone else?.

Mentoring of youth teachers continues through the teaching stage.Community organization representatives and teams of youth teachers fill outteaching reports together to evaluate each learning session. Each daystaff and youth teachers also meet to reflect on their teaching and howbetter to help each other and the young people they serve.

For the past three years, our successful Hub at a Boston Center for Youthand Families located in the Archdale Housing Development has developed itsown set of community organization partners. The Hub director reports onthe impact of becoming a Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn Hub, saying:Because of the multi-tier approach of the L2TT2L model, we can see changehappening from a 9 year old getting excited about the material, to a teenageyouth teacher gaining confidence as a teacher and forming a newperspective as a student returning to school, and to adults like myself whoare challenged to learn and grow and be our best as a role model and leader.

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I stand 100% in support of Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn. They are acatalyst for change! I am positive because my agency, the youth that weserve, and I all have been changed!

In the Fall and Winter of each year, we offer 10 week after school programstaught at selected community organizations.

Evaluating Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn. We continue to use manymethods of evaluating our program. During the learning and building stages,we use online surveys and circle-up discussions with youth teachers to helpus adjust the program and address any challenges. During the teachingphase, we use daily teaching reports filled out by youth teachers andcommunity organizations to evaluate and improve teaching. At the end ofthe program, we have youth teachers fill out a 60+ question final evaluationsurvey. This year, we did a comprehensive evaluation of the program usinga STEM program Design Principles Rubric developed by over 110 CEOs ofhigh tech firms who formed an organization called Change the Equation as

an effort to attract more young people into careers in STEM. A copy of ourRubric can be found online at:http://www.scribd.com/doc/72705780/CTEqDesignPrinciplesL2TT2L

Success of the Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn: Recognition by others.A number of organizations are interested in disseminating the Learn 2 Teachmodel, locally, nationally, and internationally. At a local level, we havebegun to seed Learn 2 Teach Hubs which develop capacity to offer theirown Learn 2 Teach program components. At a national and internationallevel, we are now working with MITs Center for Bits and Atoms to replicateour model across the international Fab Lab network (50+ sites globally).

Through a grant from the National Science Foundation, four of our youthteachers traveled to set up a demonstration Fab Lab at the Alaska FederatedNatives Convention in 2010, collaborating with Native Alaskan students froma local charter school and professors from the University of Illinois.

Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn has been written about, discussed andpresented in both popular informal education enterprises such as MakeMagazine and TEDKids Brussels, as well as in formal academic efforts likeMIT dissertations, academic texts and the ACM Tangible Embedded &Embodied Interaction conference.

A number of articles have been published about our model and its impact inplaces like the Bay State Banner,South End News, and Make Magazine. Oneof our core staff, Dr. Amon Millner based his dissertation on research over anumber of years with Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn, Computer as Chalk:Cultivating and Sustaining Communities of Youth as Designers of TangibleUser Interfaces. He and another former Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 LearnCoordinator, Shani Dailey, published a chapter that featured research fromLearn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn, Creating an Educational Ecosystem forDesign, Personal Fabrication and Invention, in the 2008 book, Communities

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of Practice: Creating Learning Environments for Educators (Charlotte, NC:Information Age Publishing)

Success of Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn: Reaching Bostons youngwomen and youth of color. Since 2007, we have kept statistics on age,gender, languages spoken, numbers of new and returning youth teachers,and the reported ethnicity/race of our youth teachers. We have alsoestimated the number of participating youth ages 8-13, based on data fromsummer and afterschool teaching reports.Gender. We actively seek to balance the number of young men and youngwomen who participate as youth teachers. We estimate that about 46% ofour youth teachers over the years have been young women and 54% havebeen young men. We have not kept gender statistics for the children ages 8-13 who participate. Over the years, we estimate that 65% of our staff andcollege mentors have been men and 35% have been women.

Ethnicity/Race. Our goal is to have mentors who look like the youngpeople they work with. Over 90% of our youth teachers and participantshave been youth of color. Over the years we estimate that our youthteachers have been 60% Black, 28% Latin@, 14% Asian, 5% White and 5%Other. We estimate that over 90% of the elementary and middle schoolyouth who have participated in Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn are youth ofcolor. Our core staff has been 75% Black and 25% White.

Languages. For the past few years, we have kept statistics on languagesspoken by our youth teachers. Each year our youth teachers report speakingbetween 8 - 12 different languages. Last year, 33% of our youth teachers

reported that they spoke a language other than English and 25% reportspeaking a language other than English most of the time at home.

Ages. Youth teachers range from 14 -19 years old. Typically we tend tohave each cohort of youth teachers have 18% 14 year olds, 25% 15 yearolds, 32% 16 year olds, 18% 17 year olds and 7% 18 year olds. We largelyfocus on having over 75% of our youth teachers be aged 15-17 to ensurethat youth teachers can choose to return to Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn fora 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th year.

Other ways of demonstrating the success of Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2

Learn:

Youth Teachers returning beyond first year. One indication of successthat the numbers of youth teachers who choose to return beyond their firstyear (not counting college mentors) has increased steadily over the past fouryears:

Year% newyouth

teachers

% returningyouthteachers

% total youth teachers in programbeyond first year

2nd year 3rd year 4th year

2008 78% 27% 16% 11% 0%

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2009 69% 31% 21% 7% 2%

2010 69% 31% 16% 11% 3%2011 60% 40% 26% 7% 7%

Former youth teachers going on to college and/or returning fromUndergraduate STEM study as college mentors. Although we have thusfar only collected anecdotal information about youth teachers who go onto

college,7 we can report that of the last 12 youth teachers graduating highschool, all but 1 is enrolled in college. Of the 6 youth teachers whograduated high school in 2011, 5 are currently enrolled in undergraduateSTEM programs. Each year, we hire 3-4 college mentors for Learn 2 Teach,Teach 2 Learn in the spring and/or summer sessions. For the past two yearsall the college mentors have been former youth teachers who, unsolicited,contacted us with a desire to return because of both their belief in theprogram and how the program benefited their college studies. One of ourcollege mentors, Ergy Jean-Baptiste was a youth teacher for three years anda college mentor for three years; we are including a letter ofrecommendation that he wrote for our nomination for a Presidential Award

for Excellence in Science, Engineering and Technology Mentoring.

Increased interest in careers involving science & technology andteaching. For the past four years, we have been tracking youth teacherscareer interests in order to judge the impact of our program:

YearMore

interested in acareer in

science andtechnology

More interested inhow science and

technology relate to afuture career

Want to pursue acareer in scienceand technology

More interested in acareer that involves

teaching

2008 82% 82% 67% Not asked

2009 64% 81% 60% Not asked

2010 71% 76% 71% Not asked2011 88% 82% 82% 56%

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