STEM Mentoring
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The fruits of community partnership during the STEMCC project produced mentors who provided real-world career connections to the youth experiences. Below, we provide guidance for integrating STEM mentors into your technology-rich curriculaÌýand materials for supporting effective youth-mentor experiences.
Integrating STEM Mentors
Create opportunities for STEM professionals from your pool of community partners (seeÌýPractice Brief 3 of the STEM Partnership ToolkitÌýto learn about building community partnerships) to work alongside youth in highly engaging activities such as designing and getting feedback on projects, learning to use technology, and practicing data analysis. The STEM professionals become mentors who share their career experiences and expose youth to STEM careers. These experiences with mentors help youth connect their STEM lessons to real-world applications within their community.ÌýÌý
Recruit mentors whose work directly connects to what youth are doing in their STEM lessons. In some cases, undergraduate students or interns can also be great near-peer mentors. Consider the needs and interests of the youth, educators, and STEM mentors and schedule a series of in-person, virtual, or hybrid interactions. SeeÌýPractice Brief 4 of the STEM Partnership ToolkitÌýfor tips on how to recruit STEM mentors and design youth-mentor experiences.Ìý
Bringing mentors into the classroomÌýdepends on various factors. In our project, often, mentor availability was more a determining factor than the sequence of learning activities. The more flexibility you have with your schedule, the more likely you are to find STEM mentors. For our project, we found that waiting until the youth had at least some exposure to the technology and content to bring in the mentors was most effective. Youth were able to engage with the mentors and ask better questions once they had done some initial brainstorming about what they wanted to design. However, STEM mentors could also be brought in at the very beginning of the unit to create an engaging introduction to the technology and content or at the end to provide feedback at a presentation of learning. We also found that building in at least two or three times when the mentors could work with youth was better than just once, but even just meeting a warm, energetic STEM professional one time can leave a lasting impression.
Materials to support youth-mentor experiences
Below are the materialsÌýto support youth-mentor interactions, including slides to introduce mentoring to youth, a structure for youth to share their work with mentors, and a thank-you letter template.Ìý
