Opportunities in the after school environment
The focus of afterschool on the importance of the voice of the young person, and the very fact that afterschool is not school, may make this environment particularly conducive to inquiry learning experiences.
After-school programs offer a variety of STEM learning opportunities which are likely to stimulate interest in students. The Science in After-school: A Blueprint for Action outlines several of these opportunities in the after-school environment:
- less restricted uses of time and settings,
- strong roles for youth that encourage their participation and their voice,
- mastering skills on individual timelines and in response to interests,
- mixed aged groups with the chance to mentor and tutor peers, and
- access to partnerships with community science resources.
Further, the report challenges that now is the time to act. The after-school environment provides the opportunities for young children to "tinker and explore", pursue their own questions, "mess around" with a variety of materials, over lengthier periods of time. All of these opportunities can foster the kinds of engagement and skills needed to build science participation.
According to the NASA and After-school Programs: Connecting to the Future report, effective afterschool leadership is more often associated with beliefs and attitudes than with training and skills. In effectively promoting learning in afterschool settings, research indicates that an afterschool leader’s ability to form strong relationships with participants, and to support them in relating to each other and trying new things, outweighs the value of a leader’s credentials or years of experience (Seidel et al., 2002; Miller, 2003). The diversity in background and experience that afterschool staff bring can be viewed as an asset, capable of helping young people rethink who they are and what they can do.
This NASA report provides valuable evidence on the potential interactions between informal educators and students. Below is an example of how after-school leaders can direct scientific discussions.
Excerpt from Community Based Organization staff interview
Sallie: Um-hm — what’s getting harder is like, when they say that something’s living or alive, and I don’t know, I have no idea how to answer it. I just like change the topic because I have no idea how to answer it. Like they say “Is a tree alive” and I’m like, “oh, I don’t know.” So we were like, well, it needs air and it needs sunlight, and it needs water, but it hardly moves unless it’s pushed, and it dies in the winter time. But like, questions like that...
Tom: That’s exactly what my kids like enjoy. I told them that just because something has like legs, does that mean that it’s alive, ‘cause chairs have legs? That’s what they enjoyed the most. Like that things don’t have to be just like us to be alive. They really go into that.
Sallie: But, you always have to come down to giving them an answer.
Interviewer: And sometimes you feel like you don’t have that answer?
Sallie: Yeah. So we just leave it like, everybody just stick to your own opinion.
Interviewer: How did the rest of you handle it when you get asked questions where you don’t know the answer? Has that happened yet?
Tom: I forget what, but I know I played it off.
Al: I just say that you are all scientists in training. I’ve been saying that since the beginning. You’re scientists in training so it’s your job to find out. So, if I can’t answer a question, it doesn’t mean that I’m wrong, because scientists can’t answer all questions yet either.
At first glance, Sallie’s story about not knowing whether or not a tree is alive might seem to be an example of the dangers of placing science learning in afterschool: When she doesn’t know whether or not a tree is alive, she claims that she just changes the topic. However, in her next sentence, she explains that what she actually did was get the participants to go back to the list that they generated and consider for themselves whether or not the tree was alive. She doesn’t have a strategy for putting complete closure on the question, and she’s uncomfortable with that, but her instincts were to go back to the evidence and ideas put forth by the participants. This is exactly the strategy used by facilitators of inquiry. Al is more comfortable with this approach than is Sallie. In this interview he explains an idea that he uses frequently in his work with participants: He positions himself as a scientist in training along with his participants, working together with them to build content understanding through inquiry.
Both Sallie and Al need strategies for connecting learner thinking to established scientific knowledge. Yet they have successfully led their participants through the rest of the essential features of science inquiry. Sallie and Al are not simply science novices. While they have little experience as science teachers and little content knowledge, they have had extensive youth development and literacy training.
Miller, B. (2003). Critical hours: Afterschool programs and educational success. Nellie Mae Education Foundation Report.
Seidel, S., Aryeh, L., Steinbery, A. (2002) Project-based and experiential learning in after-school programming. Boston's Afterschool Science for All report.
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