Why You Need an After-School Program and How Ed Tech Can Help Make Them Better

September 18, 2022

Why You Need an After-School Program and How Ed Tech Can Help Make Them Better

“Youth who participate in after-school programs improve significantly in three major areas: feelings and attitudes, indicators of behavioral adjustment, and school performance.”

Why Provide After-School Activities?

Extensive evidence shows that after-school programs can provide immense benefits to students. Not only do these programs give students the opportunity to make friends who share their interests, but they also offer a safe, productive environment for passing time after regular school hours. Studies show that students who participate in after-school programs tend to have a decrease in aggressive and risky behavior. Plus, the programs are fun! Students can dive deep into a variety of topics that interest them, outside of the required school curriculum, and build useful and unique skill sets. Experts agree (and studies have proven) that students who participate in after-school programs tend to score better in school, increase their social skills and sidestep behavioral issues.

What Makes an After-School Program Successful?

Joseph A. Durlak and Roger P. Weissberg wanted to know what outcomes can be expected from after-school programs and what characteristics are associated with better results. Basically, what makes an after-school program successful? They conducted a meta analysis of 73 after-school programs. They measured several categories related to student success: feelings of self-confidence and self-esteem, school bonding, positive social behaviors, school grades and achievement test scores, and reduced behavioral problems and drug use.

39 of the studied programs showed significant positive results in all of these areas, while 27 of the programs showed no improvement in any of these areas. What did the successful programs have that the others did not? Durlak and Weissberg discovered four main traits that resulted in successful after-school programs: sequenced, active, focused and explicit, otherwise known as SAFE.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED505368.pdf

Minds of Tomorrow. The Creative Tech Club. Our activities are a blend of coding, design, robotics and entrepreneurship designed to nurture the kids’ Creative Mindset in Miami.

September 18, 2022

Other news of interest

Movie Hackers

Empower your kids to become filmmakers.  Support the development of their visual communication and storytelling skills.

Movie Hackers mixes coding with 3D printing techniques and robotics with media while pushing your kids to be the directors and actors of their stories. This is a team project where kids will premiere their movies to their families at the MOT Demo Day Film Festival.

Examples of activities in this adventure ...

Movie Hackers

Kids will learn the basics of a pro film tool, Final Cut Pro to achieve amazing digital effects and film techniques.

Filming Drones

Coding on Scratch, kids will direct DJI Tello drones and learn how to compose and film aerial sequences.

Technologies learned:

Surviving Mars

Becoming a multiplanetary species

Kids will explore the Red Planet to set up the first Martian human population. To prepare the planet for harmonious cohabitation kids will build sustainable gardens, figure out efficient uses of energy, build autonomous robots  machinery and leverage technology and creativity to improve people's lives both on Mars and on Earth.

Examples of activities in this adventure ...

Powering the Red Planet

Levels of energy usage are higher than expected. Kids will explore ways to optimize the amount of energy to survive in the red planet.

Self-Sustaining Veggies

Build an array of sensors, warnings and mechanisms to create a garden that does not require human intervention and can grow on its own.

Technologies learned:

Come visit the Creative Tech Club

Schedule a tour