Youth Pedagogical Development in Youth Teaching Rehearsals: How Young People Navigate Multiple Roles and Identities While Rehearsing to Teach Younger Students to Program Robot Finches

This study explores how a few high school-aged youth, employed as Youth Teachers at an after-school fabrication laboratory (FabLab), talk to one another as they rehearse part of a lesson in preparation to teach elementary school-aged youth to program robot Finches. Rehearsals, which usually consist of running through lines, walking through direct instruction, and transitioning between speakers in front of other Youth Teachers, are a regular practice at Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn as youth prepare to teach at an outreach site the next day. Using interaction analysis of one typical rehearsal, we illuminate linguistic shifts as youth negotiate identities, meanings, and leadership. These movements help us understand how youth teachers navigate the multiplicities of their identities as Black and Brown young people positioned as teachers while learning to program.