After the days of forced confinement due to the pandemic, homes have quickly had to become an improvised school. They are being an online office, an after-school classroom, a gym and, above all, a logistics supply center. It is not surprising that families are stressed, with little time and many obligations to attend to, so all help is well received, as long as their context and needs are well understood.
At the educational level there are many initiatives extracurricular that have been proliferating during these weeks, offering resources STEAM online to try to fill this training gap. As many of you have asked us how these proposals differ from a project like the in-person extracurricular activities Online IGNITE We have decided to explain it in this article.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that the support of an expert teacher will always make a difference in extracurricular learning. We can assure you, from experience, that no matter how many online resources are made available to students, learning is a clearly emotional process. Once this context of trust and motivation is assured, educational resources can be used and adapted so that extracurricular learning is truly personalized.
Much more than robotics and programming
When someone enjoys what they do, they transmit energy and enthusiasm, two fundamental ingredients to feel attracted to doing an activity. No matter how old we are, we humans love challenges, overcoming ourselves, seeing how things turn out well, how the effort ends up paying off and how, in short, we feel stronger, more confident and more capable every day. This enthusiasm and confidence can be conveyed in many ways. At IGNITE We have chosen technology as a wonderful means to discover our capabilities, test ourselves and learn to make better decisions. Our extracurricular teachers are truly passionate about education and technology. Something that is noticeable from the first moment and that they communicate with their way of explaining and turning a technological challenge into an adventure.
As teachers know, achieving this level of fluency with the class is not easy; It is the result of years of experience, a high degree of professionalism and mastery of STEAM resources. The result is a progressive extracurricular learning process, tailored to each student and time-oriented.
IGNITE Academy, the STEAM extracurricular at home
Just as important as having the guidance of an expert teacher is having an appropriate extracurricular context for distance learning. We must bear in mind that we are in an environment virtual extracurricular. In this situation, our classmates are watching us from the screen and we must learn to mediate our actions through the technological platform. Therefore, in our online face-to-face extracurricular classes We make sure everyone fully understands how and when to interact and share their progress with others. This extracurricular learning experience is based on solid pedagogical planning in which the objectives and skills to be exercised are established. All of this, taking into account the diversity of each student and matching the different rhythms of the students.
Thus, the online extracurricular classes are part of a whole that is complemented by the technological challenges that the students will solve during the week. IGNITE Academy goes beyond being a simple extracurricular repository of educational content. It is also a communication channel in which students express their doubts and progress and have expert support from teachers.
A learning experience with values
We have always believed that becoming the best version of yourself is the ultimate goal of any education. Therefore, in our online extracurricular STEAM projects We pay special attention to the development of transversal skills that will be very useful to children. Respond with agility to the unforeseen, structure thinking logically, enjoy challenges instead of suffering them, communicate assertively, value the talent of others, collaborate with very diverse people, probably from a distance, channel creativity, convert frustration in resilience and many other learnings will be as crucial or more crucial for them than mere technical knowledge.
For this reason, our online STEAM extracurricular activities also incorporate dynamics that enhance the work of these skills. In this sense, curiosity exercised through play and exploration become powerful elements of motivation and learning. In this way, our extracurricular sessions are developed as an adventure that is part of a broad gamification strategy. Therefore, the dynamics have been designed to fuel motivation and learning in a fun and stimulating extracurricular context. This narrative accompanies them permanently so that the exercises become challenges and missions that have their importance in the outcome.
As we often say, it is not enough to have good raw materials to make an exquisite dish. It is the cook's hands that can work “the magic” turning the simplest food into something exceptional. This simile also applies perfectly in the case of non-face-to-face extracurricular activities. We very sincerely believe that professionalism and experience should be taken into account when looking for online educational proposals suitable for each need.
