Week two was a great introduction to what STEM is all about: building and computer coding. Kinders through 2nd grade students created marble runs with random materials and 3rd through 5th grade students logged on to the computers to do some basic coding.
The adventure continues with lower el, but they blew me away this week. They came up with such creative marble runs and did not step down from the challenge. The main part of the lesson was to teach them about frustration, failing and persistence and we had some great experiences. For example, I had a student in 1st grade who is known to have a violent temper and who cried when his marble run wouldn't work. B U T we worked through the frustration and those tears turned into a huge smile when he was able to make his marble run work! Those are the moments that are amazing in a teaching career and part of the reason I became a teacher! The students were taught this week that f a i l actually means First Attempt In Learning!
They were so excited to build and behaviors instantly approved when they started working. I have learned that little children have very short attention spans, but they love to be hands on. This activity gave me a great opportunity to work one on one with students who had previously given me a hard time. It allowed me to build a relationship with them and help them find success in their work! I will be making some adjustments to future lessons! More B U I L D I N G!
3rd through 5th graders were loving life this week when they learned to code! I started them off with difficult goals such as:
Order movement commands as sequential steps in a program.
Modify an existing program to solve errors.
Break down a long sequence of instructions into the largest repeatable sequence.
They saw these and instantly freaked out! We practiced the first coding puzzle together and then they were on their own. To encourage independence and problem solving, I refused to help any students with coding. I encouraged the '3 before me' rule and told them to practice trial and error and it worked! They were successful coders by the end of the lesson and they felt their success because they did it on their own.
I can't wait to see how all these students continue to surprise me with all they can accomplish!
Next week- sequencing and tower building :)
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