The insights and approaches shared in this toolkit came from extensive collaboration with organizations part of the Hive NYC Learning Network, a collective of informal learning institutions dedicated to supporting interest-driven learning with digital media. One commitment Hive NYC network has always been not only collaborative design with peers from other organizations, but trying to achieve learning pathways that spanned multiple organizations in the network.

In this project, a small number of organizations acted as design partners – directly collaborating with Hive Research Lab to design and test new approaches to supporting youth pathways- and a larger set of organizations participated as part of a working group that met regularly throughout the project.

Design Partners

Beam Center builds communities of making and learning that enliven student curiosity, bridge the opportunity gap and prepare youth for the way the world works. We build together with NYC youth, artists, engineers, makers and educators to connect people to projects that have purpose. Young people learn to collaborate and create while learning skills in welding, physical computing, carpentry, ceramics, textiles, video, programming and design. Projects help young people build their character and self-esteem, develop skills that are useful in today’s workplace, and prepare for a life of continual learning and meaningful action. In this project, Beam staff Brian Cohen, Allen Riley, Grace Friedman, Tim Fite and Jeff Wood worked with Hive Research Lab to design and test an approach to introducing teaching artists engaged in short-term classroom projects in a way that would support youth to understand their expertise and backgrounds so they could have a better understanding of what kinds of future opportunities they could open up.

 

Mouse is a national youth development nonprofit that believes in technology as a force for good. It empowers all students to create with technology to solve real problems and make meaningful change in our world. We are committed to creating more diversity in STEM and opening opportunities for students from underserved communities across the country. In this project, learning designers Alex Fleming and Maggie Muldoon worked with Hive Research Lab to design and test approaches that would support youth that come to their monthly Maker Night to ‘keep making’ on their own time after coming to the event.

 

Scope of Work strives to establish equity for young talent in New York’s creative industry. By removing barriers and providing access to pre-professional development resources, real world work experience, and holistic mentor relationships, SOW aim’s to close the opportunity gap for underrepresented young people and realize a diverse, impactful creative sector. In this project, co-founders Eda Levinson, Geneva White and Mikey Cordero worked with Hive Research Lab to design and test an approach to identifying early workplace settings in the creative where youth of color would thrive.

 

Working Group Partners

The project working group, a context open to all Hive NYC Network members, provided a community gathering site for those interested in developing practices around brokering future learning and supporting youth pathways with digital media. Working group participants shared organizational practices, gave feedback to design partners on emerging designs, supported the development of practice briefs and brought pathway-related challenges to the table for discussion and knowledge-sharing. We want to acknowledge the contributions of organizations that participated in working group sessions, including:

• All Star Code
• Beam Center
• Big Picture Learning
• Brooklyn College Community Partnership
• Building Beats
• Capital One
• Community Service Society of New York
• CSforAll
• CUNY
• Dreamyard
• Eyebeam
• Global Kids
• Griptape
• Harold Hunter Foundation
• Here2Here
• InnovateEDU NYC
• Mouse
• Mozilla
• NYC Parks and Recreation Computer Resource Center
• New York Historical Society
• New York on Tech
• New York Public Library
• New York University
• Pencil
• Scope of Work
• Tech Kids Unlimited
• YVote