Like every month, we're excited to share news of our latest educational technology grant award. For July, we've presented the STEM grant to Karim Ibrahim, a kindergarten instructor at the Oakton Elementary School in Illinois! Not only is Karim committed to creating STEM learning opportunities for early education students in the classroom, he'll also be stepping in to a new role at the start of the school year. Realizing the importance and value of STEM in early education, Karim will be leading a new afterschool program beginning this fall and, not only will he help create more STEM opportunities for all students, he's also aiming to reduce inequities and ensure everyone has access to beneficial learning opportunities!
Since he knew he'd be leading the school's new afterschool STEM club, Karim started looking for grant opportunities and supplies. This, of course, helped him find our grant program and we're excited to help contribute to enhancing this new initiative. Teaching kindergarten students during the school day, Karim knows a lot about what interests and excites them. Now, he'll have a more robust opportunity to help them capitalize on their curiosity when it comes to new technology and drive the development of their creative problem solving skills. Shortly after the start of the new school year, Karim will be volunteering his time to coordinate and supervise the new afterschool kindergarten STEM club, which is a perfect illustration of the commitment he has to his students!
Using the grant award for afterschool STEM.
As of now, Karim plans to host students two days a week for the STEM club this fall. They'll meet on Monday and Wednesday afternoons for the time being and these experiences will supplement their classroom lessons. Karim's main focus after receiving our latest grant is to have students learn some basics of coding. He feels that, once they get the basics down, they'll have an easier time progressing and, eventually, with learning some more in-depth computer science skills as they get older. Also, while participating in any afterschool club is typically beneficial for students, this one may carry a little extra weight. At Oakton Elementary, there aren't a lot of afterschool opportunities for students. So, especially with the importance of STEM learning, Karim's efforts are sure to impact students on two different fronts.
Not only will he provide a safe space to learn and grow, he'll also focus on core skill development. Of course, with his grant materials, he'll get to teach students some age-appropriate coding skills but that's not all. He also really wants to focus on some of the key soft skills as well. These include problem solving and collaboration as well as decision making and fostering a positive attitude. In working on group-based STEM activities, Karim's students will definitely be able to develop these crucial real-world skills. And, in combining this soft skill development with students learning new coding skills, Karim has set a fantastic goal for this new initiative—and one he can certainly achieve early on!
Introducing coding with the Cubetto Robot.
We'll be sending Karim and his students two Cubetto Robots and a 3Doodler Start kit for their new club. The Cubetto is perfect for introducing screen-free coding in early education and the 3Doodler Start is one of the most simplified technology tools on our store. Once they receive their grant materials, students can use the Cubetto to begin learning computational thinking, logic, planning, numeracy, and problem solving skills while MakerEd projects with the 3Doodler Start 3D printing pen can help them learn to think like real engineers, incorporate design thinking, and exercise their creativity. We'll be shipping these new STEAM tools to Karim shortly and he should have them before the school year begins.
Besides using these technologies in the afterschool club, Karim also plans to incorporate them in the general curriculum. This will help create more equitable STEM opportunities for a student body that's comprised largely of Black students. Throughout Oakton Elementary, nearly half of the student body qualifies as socioeconomically disadvantaged, too. In creating these coding and STEM experiences, Karim hopes to level the playing field and provide parents with a free opportunity to help their children learn new skills. Of course, it's a fantastic mission and we can't wait to see how the grant award positively impacts Karim's students! If you'd like to apply for our next EdTech grant, the application for August is open now. You can apply anytime before Aug. 20 or forward the application link to another educator in your district. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for more.
