Junior Botball Fun! Love these robots!

I became involved in Junior Botball Challenge (JBC) in 2017. The Idaho STEM Action Center offered a grant to receive training and robots. My colleague, Gina Kwid, joined me on this adventure. We worked with students in 3rd-5th grade after school in the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 school year. When I left the school for my fellowship, Gina continued the program at Galileo STEM Academy during the 2018-2019 school year and added Botball for students in 6th-12th grades. When I returned to the classroom after my fellowship, I ended up in a new classroom, new school, and new district. My administrator supported me in starting up JBC at our school, and the Idaho STEM Action Center offered a grant that allowed me to refresh my skills with professional development and get robots to use with my students. My colleague, the school Librarian, Linda Reuling, joined me on this
adventure.


    

Since our training in early October, I have been using the robots with my 3rd grade students. Teaching a classroom full of students by myself was a little challenging, especially at the beginning. These students had not faced such challenging work it seems. Many of them did not know how to problem solve other than waiting for me to assist them. In order to maximize their time coding rather than waiting for me to help them, I reinforced my classroom policy of "Ask three before you ask me." Since starting in October, the students have worked through a variety of activities in the JBC Curriculum. Initially, it took a significant amount of time for students to connect to their robot or wallaby. It's important to know it will get better. Our class worked with the robots at least twice a week to keep the skills fresh and growing.






Now, the majority of students are able to get connected without assistance. In addition, most connecting issues can be resolved by other students. This frees me up to work with students that are having bigger issues with their programming or understanding an activity. With the skills developed, I can now manage an entire class of 3rd grade students programming at the same time. As students became more adept at completing activities, I gave them the challenge of designing their own robot challenges. Seeing their smiles was all I needed to know they were ready to do a little less guided exploration. They have the basic skills that would allow them to test ideas they may have been wondering about.

  

Students had to write the instructions for their challenge. There were activities posted on the whiteboard from the JBC curriculum for examples. After writing their instructions, students had to code their own challenge before they could post it for others to complete. In addition, before they could post their instructions, they had to have them checked for spelling and other possible errors. We are currently still working on this challenge. Students who have completed their own challenge can continue experimenting with the robots or try other challenges created by their classmates.

In December, our after school group starts and will serve 3rd - 6th grade students. I'm excited to see where all of the students are at on their programming, critical thinking, and problem solving by the end of the school year.