As a middle school technology teacher I work with a variety of students in grades 6-8. My school is located in a district which is just outside a major city and the 900+ students come from very diverse backgrounds. Since my classes are considered Exploratory classes, students don't typically have much choice about taking the class. My middle school students are eager to learn when things are interesting to them and when they have control over how they learn.
In my 20+ years of teaching both in Special Education and now in Technology, I see students who are only concerned with the end product and not with the learning of how they got there.
I celebrate ‘failure’ in my room as long as the student has learned something from it, even if it’s just how to fail gracefully. My goal is to guide students to a place where they are able to be successful in this 21st century world because they push themselves to think critically, creatively problem solve, and communicate with peers
My Project
I have attended the last four Pathfinders professional development sessions and they have never disappointed. For the last 2 sessions I have worked with FiriaLabs to learn how to code in Python, first with a Micro:bit and then with a CodeBot. I have become very comfortable with the Jumpstart Python curriculum but I need more practice with the CodeBot curriculum.
After introducing the CodeBot curriculum to some students to see how they would respond to it, I had one girl tell me that she loved it and would never go back to block coding again!
Access to a Computer Science curriculum at the middle school level is not always possible so when something like this comes along, I jump at it. Physical computing (where students code a device to do something) is so rewarding for them. They love to see what their code will do and there's nothing better than to be able to make a robot do something. Having more CodeBots along with the confidence to teach this curriculum will give more students exposure to these very important computer science concepts in a fun way.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Magill and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
