STEM Studies Put Kids Ahead of the Curve. For Life.

OK, a moment of full disclosure. I AM that teacher who waxes rhapsodic about his students, OK?  But I've got good reason...

Today I taught one of the most inspiring group of young kids I've come across since the launch of Tech EdVentures. They were all between the ages of 6-8 and attend a public school for grades K-2.  Students spent one hour with the Thymio II robot, learning about how its IR sensors work and taking their first pass at programming using ASEBA's visual programming interface.

Here is some of what we discussed in the course of one hour:

• Why infrared light is not visible to the eye.
• How IR sensors work by responding to reflected light.
• How cause and effect is just like the syntax of an "if/then" argument in coding.
• How poorly planned code can create infinite loops
• How negative numbers work.

Did I mention they were mostly in first grade?

All of this learning happened after school, at the end of the day. The kids were well behaved including (and especially) the child whose mom worried that her son was unfocused in school and might be disruptive. Not for a second.

It's clear that robotics (and other STEM studies) have the ability to accelerate early childhood learning. The reason it works is simple. Once children have a hands-on experience with something that occurs in the real world, they are intensely curious about what just happened. When they write code and direct the action, their curiosity is supplemented by a sense of pride and a deep ownership of the experience that is under their control.

As a result, my group of young learners felt free to dive into topics that the Common Core Standards place years ahead of their current grade.  Negative numbers? Sixth grade. Light frequency spectrum? Late Elementary to early Middle School. In a normal classroom, it makes sense to teach such abstract concepts only to older kids. But when you have a real machine using sensors to catch invisible light or changing motor speeds using code that contains positive and negative numbers, all of a sudden these advanced concepts are neither tricky nor abstract. They are self evident to the learners.

That is the main reason why Tech EdVentures promotes STEM studies from a young age. A tangible experience of technology, with hands-on and in real-time, helps expand a child's access to new concepts. It is clear that these children will have advantages over their peers that have the potential to dramatically raise their learning outcomes, not just now, but for the rest of their lives.

In the meantime, my students are still normal kids, just like yours. They laugh. They play games. And they talk about how micro-sensors work. Shouldn't all of our kids have this opportunity?

Allen Selis, Founding Director  
Tech EdVentures

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Tech EdVentures brings STEM skills to children in grades K-8.
We're committed to disrupting the world, one young learner at a time!