First steps into STEM for young pupils through informal workshops

Abstract

In this work in progress paper we present an example of innovative practice in organizing informal STEM education workshops with young children. The workshops were divided into two learning scenarios, unplugged programming and hands-on robot play. Unplugged programming encourages understanding of the core concepts of programming such as algorithms and computational thinking rather than focusing on the programming language. In the second learning scenario, pupils were introduced to two educational robots used as a learning tool - Thymio and Codey Rocky. The aim of the second activity was linking the programming concept to a real-world scenario. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected using pre- and post- questionnaires. The pre-questionnaires contained questions about the pupils' background knowledge, i.e. basic concepts of programming and robotics. The post-questionnaires were designed to evaluate the workshops impact on the pupils' perception of these observed concepts and their overall satisfaction with the workshops. Combining unplugged activities with robots helps bridging the gap between imagination and reality, therefore improving learning.