PASA’s expanded learning approach is all about connecting the Providence community with our schools and our teachers. To accomplish this, we use a collaborative teaching practice that brings together informal educators from some of Providence’s most dynamic youth-serving organizations with formal educators from our schools.
For the past three years, we’ve been using our summer learning program—the AfterZone Summer Scholars—to bring these collaborative teaching teams together to engage our city’s middle school students in hands-on, inquiry-based learning experiences that strengthen STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) skills. The following videos show the evolution of that work, as well as its effect on both educators and young people.