Tag: coding

Coding Teamwork

Yesterday the class experienced a fun activity that afforded me the chance to witness unique forms of teamwork in the classroom. The lesson itself was a blast: I provided a secret message, written in code, that the students had to decipher in order to earn a prize. I hinted that they would learn about a treasure hidden in the classroom by breaking the code. The code was developed in the 1830s by Samuel Morse. It’s known as Morse code, and uses dashes and dots, versus ones and zeros. 

The Social Studies unit is about people migrating across the United States. Setting the scene for the era, the book discusses the development of the telegraph and Morse code. The Polite Pirates lined up for recess right after hearing these words. Then, I raced to the Internet to find a code generator to produce a fun activity. It didn’t take long. Within seconds I was typing a secret message into the text field of MorseCodeWorld.org’s Translator. I took a screenshot of the code that the translator instantly provided, and shared it with the Polite Pirates via their Google classroom.

Additionally, I gave them a screenshot of the alphabet in Morse code so they would have all of the tools necessary to break the code. Upon returning from lunch, I sat everyone down and explained the task. Then, “Go!” 

“Can we work in teams?” could be heard from all corners of the room. 

“Definitely,” came their captain’s reply.

And then, I had the pleasure of witnessing even the typically least motivated pirate tackling a tedious task of looking up each letter of a very long message. As I walked around, watching their work, I felt a little guilty about how many words I’d included. But, my Polite Pirates didn’t complain one bit! Due to the looming prospect of treasure, they furiously raced one another to break the code. 

One pair tackled each letter together. They would whisper the code, “._..” and then hunt through the letters in the alphabet until they found a match. Other teams had scouts wandering around the room to see how other teams were doing and reporting back to their base of operation with news of progress and hints of other code breakers’ breakthroughs. There were teams that designated letters to members. “You look up that letter, you look up that one, and I’ll look up this one,” I overheard. A team or two assigned whole words. Of course, there were the independent kids, who didn’t want to be encumbered with having to communicate with others. 

During the entire experience I played the sound that the MorseCodeWorld.org Translator provides: It produces audio of the code. The Polite Pirates loved hearing the beeping in the background. It seemed to add to the fever of the code-breaking. 

While walking around, looking over pirates’ shoulders, I saw that several were stuck on the word “Incredible.” I had labeled our school positive behavior prize “Incredible Hawk Tickets” in my message. I saw that many had come up with “Increkible.” Apparently, D is similar to K in the code. They were beside themselves with frustration. “This isn’t even a word!” they were complaining. 

Some Polite Pirates worked independently, but near one another for moral support.

“What word is that similar to?” I hinted. 

After a moment, “Incredible?” 

“Is it possible that you had mixed up the letters? What does that word do for the message? What if you just skipped it and moved on?” These prompts got the codebreakers back on track. I also began to see students skipping other letters. One pirate translated F, I, R, and then assumed the word to be “first.” He was correct and saved a good deal of time utilizing this strategy. 

I witnessed pairs where one student seemed to do all the work, while the other looked to literally pirate the glory. This wasn’t completely the case, though. The potential pirate had a job. He was announcing his team’s progress. He was championing the success of his hard-working Polite Pirate partner and making him feel like king of the world. The boy whose nose was centimeters away from his iPad screen and scribbling in his notebook letter after letter was grinning ear to ear as his partner yelled out how many words they had conquered. 

I had given the class a time limit of 5 minutes. When the timer went off and no one had completed the translation, there were groans of disappointment. I offered an extension of time, and the crew cried cheers of joy! We did two additional timers of 2 minutes, each. By the end of the last one, after a total of 9 intense minutes, a pair of girls had deciphered the entire secret message, “The first person to break this code will find the stash of Incredible Hawk tickets taped to the bottom of the fish tank.” 

The whole class cheered when the tickets were recovered from their hiding place. It wasn’t all that many tickets, and only the two winners divvied them up, but everyone gained the treasure of the experience. 

How do you code teamwork?

Morse Code | Invention, History, & Systems. (2023, January 5). Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved January 7, 2023, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Morse-Code

Mission Impossible: The Engineering Process with SpheroEDU

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Is your “mission” to get kids excited about learning, or is it testing?

“I have a math test to give you, but I thought we could program some Spheros instead,” I said Friday morning to applause from the Polite Pirates of Room 207. Students’ cheers gave way to music… Mission Impossible Theme Music! 

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it… And, you’re going to want to accept it… is to rescue people from certain peril,” I proposed. With everyone on the carpet, I explained that before a rescue, engineers would set up models that they could use to plan out their efforts to minimize loss of equipment and life. Their mission was to program Spheros to make it through a model of obstacles, getting to someone or group of people who needed help. The Sphero couldn’t stray from the path or touch the walls because it would be damaged and not be able to complete its mission. 

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I walked them through what they would experience.

The students were riveted to my instruction as I taught the “Engineering Process” that they would need to use while figuring out the most effective code for completing their rescue. This was the real reason for the lesson, but simultaneously they would get so much more out of learning/practicing coding, problem-solving, and working together in a team. 

I went over each scenario, pointing out the “criteria” and the “constraints”, two vocabulary words from the “Engineering Process” model from Foss Science. Students whispered with neighbors about which they were more interested in trying. I told them that if they mastered one, they may move onto another “Mission”. 

Students then returned to their seats to get out their math spiral notebooks for taking notes about how they used the “Engineering Process” while solving their missions. They opened the Google slideshow that had all of the missions, as well as an image with the Engineering Process in it. I had “made a copy for each student” through Google classroom. 

I pulled popsicle sticks with student numbers on them to pair kids. As numbers were drawn, pairs came to the carpet to redeem their Sphero robot. Then they chose whatever mission fancied them most. With two pairs per mission, the class was a buzz of engineering within moments.

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“The Medic was difficult, but a lot of fun,” one student told me as I circulated the room.

 No one got to complete more than one mission, and most did not completely finish every parameter I had set for them, but every single student was 100% engaged in a learning activity full of purpose. 

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The problem-Solving was explosive!

I want to back up to the beginning of the day, before I tell you how this memorable lesson came to a close. Students entered my room to find me painting posters. They asked what I was doing. Because I didn’t know exactly what to call it, I didn’t give them a straight answer. That drove them crazy. They asked to help. “Sure,” I answered, getting out more paint brushes, cups and paints. All I had to do was outline things, and kids would fill in. When I told them that the white was snow or that the red was fire, it fueled their curiosity all the more! Dave Burgess calls this “Preheating the Grill” (Teach Like a Pirate, 2012). My students were so hooked on this upcoming lesson, they hardly wanted to go to gym! Have you ever heard of such a thing? 

While students were at their special, I made some finishing touches and turned a fan on to help the paint dry quickly. Then I came up with names, stories, and varying parameters for each mission. I took pictures of the maps, typed up the scenarios, and threw together a slideshow to share with the class.  

Back to the lesson. Throughout the “Engineering Process”, while students were working on coding Spheros, I stopped everyone a couple of times to instruct them to take screenshots of their code. That way they could have snapshots of different levels of success. It would help them describe their problem-solving, later. Finally, I put together a Flipgrid for students to make selfie-videos describing how they used the “Engineering Process” to solve (or come close to solving) their mission. If they finished, they could watch their peers’ videos and comment. 

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I didn’t even realize that this was National STEM day! (November 8th, 2019)

We DID take the math test, but in the afternoon. They did fine. I’m sure they will remember that forever;) 

Monsters Inc SpheroEDU Lesson

If you are a teacher and you are alive, you have heard about the importance of teaching computer science to students. “Code, code, code!” is shouted from the pedagogical rooftops.

Don’t hate me, but I haven’t been excited about this concept. I tried Scratch many years ago, but between wrestling with the failing tech in my school’s computer lab and less than perfect early-in-teaching-career classroom management of 8 year olds, I was unimpressed with the outcome of learning. I scratched my Scratch plans. 

Over the years, I’ve grown increasingly comfortable with integrating creative use of technology in my lessons and classroom. We make movies, video games, and are Google gurus! But, still no coding. 

Until…

Sphero rolled into my pedagogical practice. My school district is training teachers to roll out a computer science program, and I was chosen with several others to pilate some lessons. Among other things, we will be using SpheroEDU to share the coding experience with the students of East Penn. Spheros are exactly that; balls. They have mechanical parts inside of them that follow the commands that you input in an app on a device. They can roll, turn different colors, and make sounds. (Although the sounds come from the device, not the actual robot.)

When my teacher friends and I were initially introduced to the Sphero robots we were instructed to try to get it to do some tasks. We used a variety of coding methods and tried out several styles of lesson genres. It was fun, but I wasn’t completely hooked, yet. 

A recent get together of this team was assembled to begin creating lessons that would introduce and begin teaching coding to the 4th & 5th graders of East Penn. We were to come up with 3 lessons. A brainstorming session was followed by some discussion and voting. In the talk a theme emerged where we would introduce a narrative of insect study to the students. They were all going to experience the joys and difficulties of entomologists. The students would get their robots to study insects and eradicate invasive bugs: Debug. (One of our lessons is to clean up code of problems.) Notice how the targeted study focuses on a positive term for the animals: Insects, while the animals that are a problem (Spotted Lantern Flies have become a nuisance around Pennsylvania) are labeled negatively. Also, an obvious dual purpose of the storyline is to reinforce the necessity of clean coding, devoid of bugs. IMG_2721

This idea of purpose-driven instruction helped me see the coding lesson in a new light. Rather than tell my students to get the robot to make a square or go from an arbitrary point A to a pointless point B, I would be helping kids learn how to tackle real world problems. 

With new inspiration and vigor, I returned  to my third grade classroom where a case-full of unused Spheros sat in the corner. Let’s get to work, I thought, as I tore poster paper, uncapped markers, opened up bags of cups, and pulled out piles of pipecleaners. It was the day before Halloween, and an idea hit me: Monsters Inc. I would make grids with a door in one square and a kid sleeping in another. Students would dress up cups to look like monsters. These cups would float on top of a programed Sphero robot. They would need to get from the door to the bed and back to the door again. Also, the Sphero would need to create a scary sound. (This was attempted after figuring out the code for travel.)

Prior to the lesson, I got out all of the supplies. I made one more poster than I needed for 9 groups of 3 to have their own. Each poster had the door and bed in a different location. I did this incase an outstanding group had solved every coding combination for the map they were initially given. They could try a new one. (Another way of creating challenge would be to place items on the map, like wardrobes or piles of clothing, that the robot  would have to avoid.) 

To begin the lesson I placed one poster on the board to show students. I explained that they would be “playing” Monsters Inc. They were going to get monsters to go from the door to the sleeping child. Most students were familiar with the concept from the popular movie. I explained that the monster world was powered by an electricity that ran on the screams of kids. In the movie, monsters were trained and worked hard at sneaking into bedrooms and scaring children. I reminded everyone that it was important that the monster get back to the door, so that it could get back to the monster world. Otherwise it would be trapped in the human-parallel universe! “Aaaaahhh!”

IMG_6015Before leaving the carpet, I showed the students how the block-coding in the Sphero app worked. I drew the “Roll” command on the board with labels explaining/reminding what each bubble was for: Direction, speed, and duration (time).

While student groups decorated their cup/monsters with pipe cleaners, I had one kid at a time get a robot. Teams were separated around the room. The only parameter was for student groups to try to keep the robot on the paper. Needless to say, there were varying levels of success. One group figured out how to introduce changing the light of the Sphero. I didn’t bother telling them that the sleeping child (drawn on the paper) might not see the light change under the monster cup;) I was happy for the intrigue-guided discovery! 

I only had to get everyone’s attention once or twice. One time I wanted to mention only changing one variable at a time when adjusting the rolling command: Rather than changing both speed and duration, just alter one or the other. After giving the change a try, make another adjustment. Keep going until the movement is just right. After I witnessed one group make the discovery that you should “Aim” the robot before placing the cup over it, I shared that with everyone, adding that they must “practice-run” the Sphero with the cup, because the drag of the “monster” might affect its movement.

The whole experience was a smashing success. Everyone wanted to keep working on it, but recess time dragged us all outside. We put everything away, until the next day. 

The morning of Halloween, I had students get the Spheros out again. This time, I wanted to know exactly what they were coming up with. Students did not have to use a “monster”. (Because having a Sphero roll up to you, while you are sleeping and growl, was scary enough;) I put together a slideshow that I pushed out through Google classroom, much like I did recently with the Plural Noun BloxelsEDU maze video game lesson. Students were to take screenshots of their successful codes that got the Sphero from the door to the bed and back to the door. The screenshots were then imported into the slideshow for me to view. 

The room erupted in coding. 

Students nearly lost their minds when, halfway through the experience, I showed them that they could get the Sphero to say anything you typed into a speech command. From that time forward, “Hey, kid, aren’t you scared!” was heard, among other ridiculous phrases, uttered in a robotic, honestly less-than-scary voice, all over the room. It was both hilarious and exciting.

Again, recess, and then a costume parade, ruined our robotic fun:) 

The takeaway lesson for me was the creation of a narrative, giving coding a storyline, helped me present the tasks in a way that gave meaning and purpose. The plot of Monsters Inc provided the jolt of electricity that animated the previously lifeless lesson. What have you used to give life to your lessons?

via GIPHY