The paper analyzes the problem of creativity development of students of out-of-school education institutions by means of STEM-technologies in psychological-pedagogical literature and practical activities of out-of-school education institutions. The essence of the basic concepts of the study has been specified.
As a result of a thorough analysis of the concepts of "creative activity", "creative abilities", "creativity", their features were highlighted and summarized, which gave grounds to assert that there is a significant difference between these concepts. Thus, creative activity is interpreted as a special process that leads to the creation of a new product. The main feature of a creative personality is the ability to generate new ideas. A creative personality is characterized by the ability to create a new result, produce a new product. The definition of the concept of "creativity" was formed using the method of content analysis: creativity is the ability of an individual to establish new connections between ideas or events, the formation of new skills and changes in behavior styles, which lead to a new, specific, and useful result in given conditions.
The indicators of creativity of students of out-of-school education institutions are characterized. It was found that it includes the following elements, which serve as criteria for its detection: formal originality (FrO), elaboration-asymmetry (R1), elaboration-detailing (R2), thematic originality (ThO), name (N).
The potential of out-of-school education institutions regarding the development of students' creativity is outlined. Due to the peculiarities of the organization of the educational process (high level of motivation of students, a special material and technical support, inclusion of students and educators in a creative environment, the opportunity to develop at their own pace, the absence of strict evaluation and assessment, a flexible mechanism for choosing the programme by the teacher, availability of specially trained narrow-profile teachers-practitioners, etc.), out-of-school education institutions have significant opportunities for the development of students' creativity, compared to other educational institutions.
The information on the development of STEM-education in Ukraine and foreign countries, regulatory and legal support for the implementation of STEM in our country has been summarized.
The features of STEM-education were analyzed,it was found that the integrated content of STEM reflects the multidisciplinary nature of problems that exist in real life, STEM-education provides students with skills that allow establishing connections between the acquired knowledge and problems that arise in the real world. In addition, the use of STEM technologies in the educational process contributes to the development of creativity since they are practically oriented.
An author's model of the development of creativity of students of out-of-school education institutions using STEM-technologies has been developed, which includes the following components: a methodological component (purpose, tasks, scientific approaches and principles); value-motivational component (external and internal motives, needs, development of interest in one's own creativity and its development); organizational-technological component (stages of implementing the model in the educational space, structure of the educational process, STEM-technologies, means of implementation); result-evaluation component (appropriate level of creativity development).
Provisions regarding the introduction of STEM-technologies (research-cognitive learning, the method of educational projects and making) into the educational process of out-of-school education institutions and the training of teaching staff regarding their implementation have gained further development.
