STEM applications: Integrating informal learning with the formal learning environment

Abstract

Many times only a select group of students are able to participate in after school activities due to various reasons. Because only a few students are able to participate from a given class, only those students receive benefits from the extracurricular activity. Additionally, since the activity is usually informal, the students may only identify the activity as extracurricular and not make connections between the activity, their schoolwork, and real world applications. By incorporating after school activities with content in the classroom, deeper connections can be made as well as impacting a larger demographic of students. Thus, integrating informal learning with formal learning serves the dual purpose of reaching more students as well as providing a vehicle for interactive learning activities in the formal setting. This paper provides a framework for interweaving regional informal learning activities with a sequence of elective courses in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) applications. The framework described in this paper is specific to integrating the informal activity of a regional robotics competition (designed for 4th-12th grades) with formal learning, specifically for middle school grades (6th-8th). The STEM applications courses are designed to increase learning and develop better understanding of fundamental topics while providing preparation time for the regional robotics competition. While students are learning through the use of a robotics platform, the fundamental STEM topics for the class are re-emphasized. Having interactive projects in the classroom provides a context for the fundamental content being taught while also impacting those students who otherwise would not have been able to participate in the robotics competition. Moreover, all students in the class can be exposed to the robotics platform at some level. Additionally, since preparation for the competition is conducted through the course, more students have the opportunity to participate on the actual day of competition. This paper will provide details of the framework - That integrates informal learning with formal learning - providing examples of how this framework has been implemented and where it has been successful. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2013.