I need funding for professional development to bring new computer science (CS) skills to their classrooms at the Pathfinders Summer Institute.
$2,422 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
My kindergarten students have a love of learning along with the curiosity to learn more about the world and how it works. To continue and help build enthusiasm despite the challenges they encounter from special populations of being at-risk, economically disadvantaged, or an English Language Learner I want to continue to encourage my students to delve deeper into the areas that interest them.
Children make life-size tracings of themselves as their curiosity spurs with the love of reading and technology.
My Project
This professional development targets teachers working with young children K-2 who are interested in integrating computer science (CS), computational thinking (CT) and robotics into their early childhood classrooms with a playful developmentally appropriate approach.
The DevTech group at Tufts University, led by Prof.
Marina Umaschi Bers, has created both ScratchJr (in collaboration with Mitch Resnick’s group at the MIT Media Lab) and KIBO robotics, a robotic kit that can be programmed without screens or keyboards by connecting wooden blocks. It has also developed a pedagogical approach, called “Coding as a Playground”, teaching strategies and materials to integrate programming with other areas of the early childhood curriculum, with a special focus on literacy, creative problem solving, arts and movement.
We will experience this approach through hands-on projects and model how to teach coding and robotics in an early childhood classroom. We will explore how to both take advantage of ScratchJr and KIBO for helping children think in new logical ways, but also for collaborating and developing socio-emotional awareness. Teachers who attend this PD will have the opportunity to become experts with KIBO robotics and ScratchJr; Learn and have access to already existing curriculum, videos, and assessment materials; Develop and plan their own integrated curriculum materials; Have access to a set of program links and teaching resources at the K-2 level that include on screen, tangible and unplugged activities; Understand the pedagogical and theoretical approach by discussing excerpts from the book “Coding as a Playground: Programming and Computational Thinking in the Early Childhood Classroom” by Marina Umaschi Bers; Explore different techniques to document student’s learning trajectories; and Learn strategies for promoting home-school connections and community engagement through programming and robotics.
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