So STEM…
They changed two things this year…
- STEM became a video
- Didn’t count for excellence
#1 made the project more difficult. Kids have to do presentations in school with science fair poster boards all the time. They were used to doing it. With the video submissions, which I thought would be more accessible, turned out to be quite inaccessible. While a number of kids are native video editors, the majority just can’t pull it off. As a coach, trying to make the STEM project even accessible to my students has been really tough. And I have 20 teams… I can’t even begin to help each one even if I wanted to…
#2 made the kids not care… At all… Events with 40 teams would turn in 3 or 4 Stems, even when it counted for states. At an elementary tournament I did in December we couldn’t give away a STEM… No one turned one in…
Also, I was hoping that with the videos online that they would be shared like the robot designs at competitions so other teams could see and improve… And quite the opposite happened. Before at least you could see their poster board and ask them about it. Now, STEM isn’t seen or mentioned until the end of the day… When the award is given out.
I actually really like how CREATE does it:
So, what I would like is to use the CREATE model, when you can’t make edits and simply do a presentation with no effects AND require it for Excellence… Or just get rid of it.
I’d be happy either way.