Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) Summer Bridge is a program funded by the NYC Department of Youth & Community Development, in collaboration with Sesame Flyers International Inc and Workforce Connect.
The program aims to build professional skills in youth through employment and community engagement activities. I worked as a Program Facilitator in this program in the summer of 2020, the program’s first virtual iteration.
Overview
In the summer of 2020, I learned about Sesame Flyers Inc., a small organization that connected youth in Brooklyn to opportunities for community engagement and summer employment. I joined as a Program Facilitator, which meant that I would be taking the outline of a 5-week professional development program and adapting it to a learning experience that was completely virtual, due to Covid restrictions.
I carefully examined the scope and sequence of the course, which was designed to follow a set of activities students could complete in an app called Hats & Ladders. The course adaptation called for making each learning objective uniquely engaging and memorable, using technologies such as Padlet, Slack, and Zoom features.
The Situation: How can I adapt a 5-week in-person professional development course for middle schoolers to a virtual environment?
Duration of project: 2 months
Audience: Students ages 11-14 seeking summer employment and professional skills
Format: Zoom workshops, Google Classroom, Slack
My Role: I led a class of 24 students through the 5-week program, in collaboration with fellow Program Facilitators.
Skills Demonstrated: Instructional Design (K-12), Program Facilitation, eLearning Development
Technologies Used: Google Slides, Microsoft Powerpoint, Google Classroom, YouTube, Hats & Ladders (app), Slack, Padlet
Course Mapping
My first step was to adapt the scope and sequence provided by Summer Bridge to a virtual format, combining Zoom workshops with activities from the Hats & Ladders App and daily and weekly written deliverables to ensure that each course goal was fulfilled.
Curating Learning Resources
The students in each class were responsible for a final deliverable demonstrating their learnings in community engagement. My job was to provide them with the training and resources necessary to accomplish this long-term goal. Here, you can see an activity I facilitated on Padlet to help the students brainstorm about their community engagement project.
Project Role Delegation
My class decided to make an informative YouTube video on the warning signs of domestic abuse. I split the class into teams, and gave each team a title according to their role in the project. Those teams were the “Creative” team, the “Research” team, and the “Strategy” team. Within each team, students were responsible for meeting course requirements and delegating tasks. I also encouraged the students to think about how the teams they chose related to their professional goals.
Final Deliverable
While I was responsible for the success of the 5-week program, the students themselves were responsible for the most impressive part of this project. You can take a look at the video they researched for, scripted, recorded, and edited all on their own!
Final Result
Look below to see an example of a virtual session I facilitated during the SYEP Summer Bridge course!