Evaluating The Effectiveness Of After School STEM Programs In Schools

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After-school STEM programs provide children with these learning opportunities through either teaching methods or hands-on experience. Many of these STEM programs try to give children the best resources to use for their activities but these resources are not easy to obtain, so the children cannot recreate the activities they learned at the program at home. Because of this, parents may not be able to see if their child retained anything for the STEM program they enrolled them in, and cannot see a reason why they should keep their child in a program they are not retaining knowledge and skills in. STEMovative hopes to break down this barrier by using materials that children can easily find at their home or in a store and be easily recreated by themselves or with the help of a parent. This will allow the child to create the things they learn in our program and show their parents that they have …show more content…

Teaching with only a small amounts of interaction can make the children feel like they are just making their school days longer, which may lead to children being bored and not participate in the program. However, having activities and then not explaining the purpose of the activity does not help children understand STEM concepts. STEMovative wants to have a balance between lessons and activities. We want students to have constant hands-on activities, but also explain, as students create and build, why each step leads to the next. Rather than explain their results at the beginning or end of the activity, STEMovative will walk them through and focus on explain the steps in detail and how that will lead to the end result. We will be able to give children explanations in intervals so they are not overwhelmed with a lot of information at the beginning or end of the