Precious Listana, Trellis Scholar:

One of the ways that I plan for engagement with STEM ideas is a mixture of culturally-responsive practice and peer-to-peer learning. It’s a mixture of connecting it to things that they hold true to themselves, and allowing them to build things around that and build things with others in the classroom in a smaller setting so that they can feel more vulnerable to ask those questions and explore together.

Josh Deis, Trellis Mentor:

One of the things that my mentee and I did to plan for engagement with important STEM ideas was we really tried to design lessons that were relevant to the students. And we distinguish between relevant and real world. Like, yes, everybody says, “Make things real world.” My mentee and I really worked at, “Will the kids care?” And so we designed lessons that we thought the students would find relevant and want to solve.

Jessica Chan, Trellis Scholar:

So I planned for engagement with important STEM ideas with a little formula that I usually have when I create a unit. So we usually start with an engage activity and then a mini intro lecture. And then after that, I will just reinforce those ideas with simulations, videos, and hands-on activities like labs.

Neal Donahoe, Trellis Mentor:

A strategy I used with my mentee to help plan for engagement with STEM ideas was to use lessons that would have a similar structure where we’d change the concept material out. For example, we would do a lot of card sorts. So that way, my mentee wasn’t focused on how to implement the activity. They were more focused on how did they get the kids involved. The students already know how to do a card sort. This allowed for us to focus a lot more on the content and really getting the kids to understand how to interact with each other, how to interact with that particular idea, instead of always trying to teach them a new type of lesson plan or having the same strategies—new strategies over and over again where they were working in something completely new.