Robots are a great teaching tool, but sometimes they need a human touch, says Sandi Castro, career and technical education coordinator for Del Valle ISD in Texas.
Castro was honored with the Innovative CTE & STEM Director Award, one of the tech & Learning Awards Innovative Leader Awards, in the recent Live Regional Summit in New Jersey. She was recognized in part for her teaching of robot pedagogy.
Here are some of Castro’s top tips for teaching with robots.
1. Teach with robots: Make sure robots are developmentally appropriate
Castro specialized in early childhood education after becoming fascinated with the developing mind while spending time caring for her young nephew. Consequently, making sure all teaching tools are developmentally appropriate is near and dear to her. Too often, school districts don’t pay attention to the grade level or cognitive abilities of their students when implementing robots in classrooms, she says.
“I just gave this robot to this teacher because it looks like it would be good for kindergarten or pre-K, but without really looking at how the robot works and if the kids would be ready for something like that. For me, that is the biggest mistake we all make,” Castro says.
2. Get Creative with Robot Curriculum
While many robotics kits advertise an accompanying curriculum, Castro says these often don’t pass the bar for what she would consider a true curriculum.
“A curriculum appears about robots, which are simply solutions to a task. It’s simply a task card with a solution,” she says. “That doesn’t really give anyone a chance to think outside the box, does it? “So in a time when there are so many standardized tests, all these high-stakes assessments that require a right and wrong answer, we are losing creativity.”
To avoid this, Castro designs her own curriculum that emphasizes student voice and choice. For example, in a recent English-themed robotics lesson, he had students use the robots to reach specific words in a vocabulary exercise. Because students were encouraged to be active as part of the lesson, they ended up broadening their scope. “I just wanted them to drive the robot to each word, but they recorded their voices and the robot read the sentence as it drove to the different places,” he says.
3. Learn from students
Castro says one of the best parts of teaching with robotics is how students do the unexpected with the tools and will get more of one than most teachers.
“I just had to know the basics,” he says. “How to turn it on and off and basic troubleshooting. I showed them how to use it properly and safely, and then I let it go and they taught me a lot more. “I didn’t know our robot could do all the things it could do, but they figured it out.”
This ties into their overall philosophy that teachers should be lifelong learners. “As educators, we are supposed to constantly grow and learn,” he says. “Every year is different, but I could use the lessons that I learned working with these students or these adults and apply them here because I have all this experience and I have learned from all the things that I have done. . It is very important to be reflective.”
