Those ARE the Droids You're Looking For! Robotics for CS!
My students need these Ozobot and Sphero robots to provide tangible, physical and visual results for the computer coding they create beyond just outcomes seen on a monitor!
I teach in a suburban university town where our STEM offerings are booming in numbers! As we have grown from just a couple of sections to 4 teachers instructing in Computer Science and Engineering coursework, we are very excited about both the direction and growth of our programs.
Students really enjoy being able to see a physical manipulation of the code they have written!
It is for this reason that we are looking to purchase additional robotics kits to meet the increase in enrollment numbers!
My Project
I teach in a suburban university town where both our STEM offerings and the number of students taking them are busting at the seams. Students include those traditionally underrepresented groups, especially as our new Computer Science Principles class has allowed a wider range of student to experience STEM without having prior coding experience!
My students are expecting to participate in engaging activities that foster problem-solving skills, and these robots will provide the vehicle to do that!
I have seen both Ozobot and Sphero bots in action and know they have a high engagement factor for students!
The Ozobots will provide a gentle introduction to the world of problem-solving via programming in a physical manner that is not tied to coding. We will also use these as part of our vertical outreach to expose students in our feeder elementary and middle schools.
Sphero makes the abstract process of programming and engaging in "computational thinking" very concrete for students and provides visible as well as fun ways for students to see the practical application of STEM skills they are learning. With Sphero, my students will foster problem-solving and teamwork skills to design, engineer, and build bots powered by Sphero to complete STEM challenges posed by both me and their own initiative. They will accomplish all this while strengthening their coding skills via a language that will bridge from that which they encountered in Middle School (Scratch) to the more complex languages (Java, Android, JavaScript and Python) that we study in high school. There are Sphero-based applications which will direct students to create simple programs or macros so it can act like a robotically controlled "ROV." Once basic understandings are developed, the students will be limited only by their imagination!
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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 Mr. Behmer and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
