Formative Assessment of STEM Activities in Afterschool and Summer Programs

Graphical Abstract

Abstract

The positive impacts of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) afterschool and summer programs have been well documented and summarized in a number of review papers and books (e.g., Allen, Noam, and Little 2017; Krishnamurthi and Bevan 2017; NRC 2015). Growing awareness of STEM’s value in outside-of-school time (OST) has in recent years led education leaders to develop the STEM Ecosystem Movement, an effort to form collaborations among formal and informal educators with support from local businesses, universities, science centers, and other partners, with the goal of creating more effective ways of fostering student learning. At last count, 68 city and regional teams have joined StemEcosystems.org, a collaboration involving 1,870 school districts, 1,200 OST providers, and 4,350 philanthropic, business, and industry partners, serving more than 33 million preK–12 children and youth.

Keywords:

• Assessment
• STEM
• Informal Education

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to the pioneering teachers who volunteered their time to develop, implement, and write case studies on formative assessment in afterschool and summer programs: Olga Feingold, Steve Green, Sarah Abramson, and Kathleen Wright from Boston, Massachusetts; Cassie Deas, Anne Gensterblum, Eleanor Carter, Ebony Weems, Shayla Humphreys, Lauren Buford, Rachel Amescua from Nashville, Tennessee; Ruth Levantis and Angeli Lowe from New York, New York; and Audra Cornell, Allyson Trull, Ali Blake, and Hillary Genereaux from Providence, Rhode Island. We also thank Jessica Donner and Sabrina Gomez of Every Hour Counts and Saskia Trail of ExpandEd Schools for their leadership and insightful comments on this paper, as well as Kathleen Lodl, Page Keeley, and Sarah Michaels, whose ideas inspired our instructional methods, and the STEM Next Opportunity Fund for financial support of the STEM Ecosystem project of which this study was a part.

The handouts shown in Figures 1 and 2 were created as part of the ACRES project, supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and STEM Next Opportunity Fund, which offers coaching and professional development materials to afterschool educators in rural settings. You can find more information about the ACRES project online.

Author Contributions

Cary Sneider ([email protected]) is a visiting scholar at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.

Sue Allen ([email protected]) is a senior research scientist at the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance in Augusta, Maine.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cary Sneider

Cary Sneider ([email protected]) is a visiting scholar at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.

Sue Allen

Sue Allen ([email protected]) is a senior research scientist at the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance in Augusta, Maine.