Fun With Robots!

This past week I had the opportunity to go to Lakeview Elementary and teach a third grade class about Robots! I think that the lesson plan that I created was the perfect computer science lesson to teach on a Friday afternoon. The students were so excited when I walked in with the robots and could hardly contain their excitement to share what they already knew about the robots. I decided to bring Dash, Beebot and Ozobot. All three of these robots are very different and I thought it would be a great idea to bring in different robots that require very different methods of inputting algorithms. On one hand, Dash received its directions from an iPad, while Ozobot received directions by reading different patterns and colors of lines. 

A happy Beebot!

I started the class of with an unplugged activity about coding and algorithms. I asked the students what they already knew about robots and if any of them have ever used them before. I was impressed with the answers the I received from the students. One of them said that he had a remote control dinosaur that was a robot and he was able to explain how he gave the dinosaur directions by pressing buttons on the remote control. From here I went to ask student if they have ever heard of something called coding. One student told me it was "how we make computers do what we want" and I explained to him that this was true. I continued to ask the students if they had ever heard of an algorithm. Most of the students shook their head no. I explained that it was a set of specific directions that we give things like computers or sometimes even people so they know what to do. I told the class that it was their job to program my teaching assistant Emma in order to make her draw a smiley face on the white board. I had the students raise their hands one by one to give her directions. At first the students were not being specific enough with their directions but eventually they began to understand that in order for Emma to know what to do and where to draw the different parts of the smiley face they had to give her very specific directions. I think that this unplugged activity was incredibly effective in preparing the students to play with the robots. It was a great way to have students involved and engaged as they raised their hands and shared their knowledge and opinions. The unplugged activity was an efficient way to introduce students to how they were going to code the robots by giving them algorithms. 

Visit code.org for awesome unplugged activities!

After the unplugged activity I explained to the students that I brought three different robots and they all had different ways in which they were programmed. Once I explained how they worked I divided the class into three separate groups. Emma would supervise and help with Dash, I would help with Ozobot and Beebot was unsupervised but visited frequently by both Emma and myself. If I were able to change anything about this lesson, it would be to have another teacher to help assist in supervising the stations. Because the students were so excited to see the robots, the students were fighting as to who got to use the robots first. Because Emma and I were at two of the stations we were able to control the students and help them get along. However, at the third Beebot station it was hard to make sure the students were staying on task and behaving while using the robots. 

The app we used to code Dash: GO

I am very proud of the lesson that I created to teach the students how to use the robots. I thought that the unplugged activity did a great job preparing the students for learning how to use the robots. In the future I would really like to start using more unplugged activities in my lessons. I think this is a great way for students to learn abstract concepts in a simple and interactive way. I also would be interested in teaching students how to use more complex robots like Tinybits in the future in order to expand their knowledge on coding and computer science. Through my time at Lakeview last Friday I gained a lot of experience in classroom management. I was able to learn how to use stations effectively in the classroom. I was able to make sure that students were staying on track at their stations and that each group had the same amount of time at each station. I also found that if you ask students about their previous experience or knowledge on a certain topic, it gets them engaged in the lesson and excited to learn more and expand their knowledge about the topic. Overall, I think that my robotics lesson plan last Friday was extremely successful.