In a suburban neighborhood, in an average city our high hchool has an extremely diverse collection of students. The diversity is seen in ethnicity, learning styles and socio-economic status.
STEM cuts through all of those factors and has the ability to engage, excite and motivate students to be active members of the school community.
The number one application of STEM in our school is through robotics, programming and competition. Once students become involved in robotics- it open doors to so many STEM projects, classes and internships that they were not aware were an option until becoming a part of the team.
My Project
In the past, attending a training has filled my head with ideas that are transformed into action in the classroom. I have been coaching robotics for years but at this point, I can only offer help with design and fund raising. I hope that this training will provide me not only with the knowledge but also the practice in coding that I need to be a stronger coach who can also help with programming.
I plan to use the knowledge I gain from this professional development to revise the third quarter of my Energy Technologies class to include programming and robotics.
Due to lack of confidence in teaching students the coding portion of robotics, I have only offered it as extracurricular. I am looking forward to make it a part of the curriculum of my classes.
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