Week 5

This past week the robotics group grew from 10 students to 15 students, meaning new procedures and expectations were to be put into place.  The good thing about the change was our work space went from a closet down the hall to my classroom, making it easy for students to get to  their robots and make the most of what precious time we have for intervention.  Students were introduced to a rubric they would be using to rate themselves on their programming performance.  Students were also given checklists and a troubleshooting guide to help them take charge of their learning. 

Students were also introduced to the reflection sheet that will be used weekly or biweekly in order to reflect on that day or week's programming.  I have not yet decided if I wanted this to be a weekly or biweekly task, but I do know that I am going to have my groups post onto Seesaw weekly with a summative reflection.  My groups have already used Seesaw to write their goals for robotics and the rest of their fifth grade year.

Our group also was able to get two more devices, so now our classroom has 8 kindles (one is an older kindle that does not run the Wonder or Blockily applications but does connect to the internet), 4 desktop computers and 2 laptops.  This makes it so much easier for our classroom to seamlessly integrate technology into our curriculum and keeps students from having to wait for a device.

I read up on a Case Study involving the Dash and Dot wonder robots.  The challenge presented in the study mirrors my own objective for robotics: to "inspire students to participate in programming and other technologies; while improving student motivation and engagement" (Segiet, 2016).  This case study helped put into perspective what exactly I was trying to achieve with my Dash and Dot robots.  In the case study, the researcher was also wishing to start a coding club for the following school year, making the research and findings very relatable and relevant to my own internship and studies.  You can find the PDF to the case study below:

http://wonderworkshop.sunburst.com/ww_case-study1.pdf