Program Lets Kids Live Their Dream Careers For A Week
Dr. Robert Woodward says it’s one of his greatest accomplishments – seeing students from the Youth Adventure Program (YAP) continuing their education on the Texas A&M campus.
Woodward, YAP director and clinical assistant professor of learning sciences, got involved in YAP when he was a graduate student at Texas A&M. He saw the potential for the program to open doors to what a potential career path could look like for the middle and high school participants.
The Youth Adventure Program encourages career exploration by allowing participants to choose a field of interest for a one week course. YAP offers courses in almost every college at Texas A&M from architecture to investigative forensics. This year’s camp featured two new subjects: nanotechnology and sports medicine. There are also plans to add two new subjects next summer: entrepreneurship and archaeology.
“You have to look at courses that would lend themselves to hands-on experiential learning. Yes, there will be lecture components because you have to set up the activities, but you have to have enough of those activities where the kids really get what we call an immersive, hands-on glimpse at the field,” explained Dr. Woodward. “We have information from kids that say this camp really focused them in on those aspects they were good at. They never saw themselves as being an engineer but they took that and realized their skills in math and their skills in design and art could actually transfer into a very successful design career.”
Camp participants are not the only ones that see a benefit. Dr. Woodward has seen his education majors who are on the fence about whether they can actually teach in middle or high school. “Before they go into their student teaching completely cold, they get that experience in working with these kids and the challenge of being able to relate and practice their classroom management skills.”
“The way this camp allows students to explore their individual interests in such an engaging way has shaped much of my teaching philosophy,” said Kaitlin Sessions, a YAP counselor. “Working with the campers at YAP has shown me how important it is to allow students the chance to grow their skills on their own terms and in the ways that work best with their varied learning styles.”
Many YAP counselors come from Dr. Woodward’s graduate and undergraduate courses EPSY 459 and EPSY 659. While only a two-week course, the students are on the clock 24 hours a day in order to get the three hour credit. At the end of those two weeks, counselors are required to complete a comprehensive survey including a new course and professor that would be a good fit for the program.
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This article by Ashley Green originally appeared in Transform Lives.
