Abstract:

The article presents the STEM methodology which eases the acquisition of “array data” structure during the extracurricular classes. It is used by ‘’Club Robotics” Byala, which was found by engineers who has worked in the field of robotic systems, mechatronics, information technologies and education.

Introduction:
Nowadays teachers are facing a lot of challenges related to the new competence oriented methods. The transition from a static concept of the content of the curriculum to the dynamic representation of the knowledge, skills and perceptions that students should acquire during their studies. All of this concerns the way of teaching, evaluating and organizing the educational process.

Characteristics on the STEM Educational Model:
STEM educational model is based on the methods of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Students conduct experiments, they are encouraged to share their opinion and ideas and take part in group projects. Student are active participant, not listeners, they put in practice and experience the knowledge they have acquired. It is a new way to learn about the world and combines different methods of seeing and discovering things in our daily world. STEM model inspires and motivate the students as it changes the way their act of learning. The fact that it is based on experiments, even when they are not as successful as expected, teaches the children that the result is not the most important thing.

Methodology:

Aim of the educational methodology:
The STEM methodology aims to support and eases students when they study the array data structure during extracurricular activities. Educational materials are designed to fulfill the purpose of the lesson.

The process of teaching robotics and programming is focused on “doing” things. Students learn about different subjects by playing with the robots, group works and group projects on automatic systems. Students step in the world of robotics, innovations, programming and science in a new and more interesting way.

Practical work and visualizing:
- can be graded according their level of difficulty;
- are set in a strict logical order;
- do not allow just automatically memorizing the contend but its fully understanding;
- support the development of algorithmic thinking and building constant and deep knowledge and skills.

Aim of the lesson:
- Gaining knowledge and skills to work with dynamic structure of data type ”array”;
- Developing skills to use algorithms in solving practical tasks with “arrays”.

Practical performance of the task:
- Every student has his own robotic system connected with a light emitting diode shield and 8 RGB light emitting diodes and each and every one is controlled by a different IP address;
- Students have to create an algorithm for one dimensional arrays of 8 elements, which value is generated randomly. The algorithm has to find the one with the minimum value;

Conclusion:
This article presents the STEM methodology which eases the acquisition of “array data” structure during the extracurricular classes. Practical work and visualizing are very important during the teaching process.

Keywords:

STEM, Innovation, technology, education, robotics.