How to teach English abroad
Interested in teaching English abroad? We discuss your options for teaching English as a foreign …
Home / Teaching / Primary Education Teaching / Volunteering in the Classroom: Planning and Organising Practical STEM Activities / Get started planning your practical activity
Get started planning your practical activity
Introduction to week 1 of Planning Activities.
[Deborah] Welcome to ‘Planning Activities’, the second course in the ‘Inspiring Young People in STEM’ program for STEM Ambassadors, and other volunteers in STEM. I’m Dr Deborah McNeill, the lead educator on this course. I’m Director of the Glasgow Science Festival and part of Science Connects, the team responsible for managing the STEM Ambassador programme in the West of Scotland. [Zara] And I’m Dr Zara Gladman, Public Engagement Coordinator at Glasgow Science Festival. [Deborah] Over the next two weeks, we’ll be sharing our experience of developing and planning STEM activities. You’ll look at a range of practical activities, videos and articles and share your ideas in discussions throughout this course.
[Zara] It’s really important to tailor your activity to meet the educational needs of the young people you’re engaging with. For example, the type of activity and language you use will differ if you’re working with a secondary school physics class compared with a Girl Guide group. We’ll discuss how to plan and develop activities differently for the classroom or other, non-school environments. Key to this is communicating effectively with educators as part of your activity planning. We’ll examine how to discuss the aims of your activity with teachers or group leaders, and how to ask the right questions.
[Deborah] By the end of this course, you’ll be equipped with tools to help you to develop your own engaging activity that inspires young people with STEM learning and careers. First, we need to explore what we mean by an engaging activity and inspiration.
Welcome to ‘Planning activities’, the second course in the Inspiring Young People in STEM program. The purpose of this course is to help you match your volunteering activities to the educational needs of the young people you work with. Central to this is being able to communicate with educators or group leaders in the schools or community groups you volunteer. We focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects in this course, and practical activities such as experiments, demonstrations and hands-on tasks.
On this course
In Week 1 you will look at different modes and delivery for engaging with young people, and how to use curricula to inform your discussions with teachers. In Week 2 you’ll create your activity plan with a risk assessment and practise your activity.By the end of this course, you will be able to:- Develop an engaging and inspiring STEM-related activity for young people
- Communicate, negotiate and agree with educators and group leaders about activities and demonstrate an appreciation of the STEM curriculum
- Design a practical activity to be delivered within a school or non-school organisation, with an awareness of the audience, ability and age group
- Create an activity plan to use when delivering a practical activity in a school or non-school organisation
Tasks and discussions
Tasks are titled as such and are highlighted with a vertical line in the left-margin – like the one against this paragraph. The first tasks of this course are at the bottom of this page.
Learning together
This course is designed to enable support from fellow learners, particularly via the discussions. Feel free to share your thoughts and questions about the course and share your experiences as a volunteer. FutureLearn is a ‘social learning’ platform, so please invite help by posting a question as a comment in the relevant course step. If you can help a fellow learner, don’t be afraid to reply and make a suggestion.
Get started
Introduce yourself
To get us started, say hello, who you are, and what volunteering role you have in the comments below. We’d like to know what you’ve experienced as volunteer or participant that has really made an impact on you.Mark complete
When you complete a step on the course, click ‘Mark as Complete’ at the bottom right. This helps you keep track of your progress. Mark over 90% of the course steps complete and you’ll be eligible for a Certificate of Achievement when you Upgrade.
This article is from the online course:
Volunteering in the Classroom: Planning and Organising Practical STEM Activities
Created by
-
What’s the future of workforce development?
Explore the key workforce development trends, challenges, and opportunities that lie ahead for L&D practitioners, …
What are different programming languages used for?
Find out about some of the most popular programming languages, what they’re used for, and …
What is anxiety, and how can you deal with it?
In this article, we provide you with all the information you need to be aware …
This article is from the free online
Volunteering in the Classroom: Planning and Organising Practical STEM Activities
Our purpose is to transform access to education.
We offer a diverse selection of courses from leading universities and cultural institutions from around the world. These are delivered one step at a time, and are accessible on mobile, tablet and desktop, so you can fit learning around your life.
We believe learning should be an enjoyable, social experience, so our courses offer the opportunity to discuss what you’re learning with others as you go, helping you make fresh discoveries and form new ideas.
You can unlock new opportunities with unlimited access to hundreds of online short courses for a year by subscribing to our Unlimited package. Build your knowledge with top universities and organisations.
Learn more about how FutureLearn is transforming access to education
