Helping students learn new technology skills and exceed expectations

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Last summer, the Crockett Foundation took a group of high school students to Orlando to participate in a full-stack development (coding) workshop at Oracle Labs. The excursion was part of the Foundation’s annual enrichment trip focused on exposing students to booming aerospace and technology careers. Upon arrival, the workshop facilitator spoke with the group’s director and commented that the day’s lessons may be too advanced for this age group.

“You can hang your heads if the presentation seems too complex. I wouldn’t mind,” he said as he explained the first of several coding problems of the day. After the signal was given for the first challenge, a few hands went up almost immediately. “That’s right!” “Wow, you guys are fast learners.” Soon, the tone of the workshop changed, and the group of high school students was on their way to becoming proficient in the fundamentals of full-stack development and adding one more coding language to their repertoire.

So how did Crockett Foundation students, most of whom attend Title I schools and live in historically disadvantaged communities, achieve this kind of success? The answer may lie in a small but mighty after-school and summer program that sets high expectations to inspire young people to explore career paths in technology and become leaders committed to improving their communities.

Introducing technology-driven career paths

The Crockett Foundation’s Coding in Academics (CIA) program launched in 2009 at a local high school as an after-school space to provide students with basic instruction in coding languages. Over the past 15 years, the program has expanded its offerings to include classroom instruction in general computing, digital technology, mixed media, robotics, e-sports, and web design. Today, the CIA program has rebranded as Digital Explorers, a robust STEAM education program spanning four high schools and serving over 150 students.

Over the years, our Digital Explorers have visited NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the Magnet Research Lab on the FSU/FAMU campuses, and JetBlue University, all as part of enrichment field trips to expose students to the vast possibilities offered by the fields of science and technology. Our purpose is twofold: (1) to provide our students with unique experiential learning opportunities; and (2) to broaden their understanding of the STEAM careers of the future.

Helping students connect multiple disciplines

Often, the typical school environment pushes students to compartmentalize varied subjects. Subjects like math and science are often learned in isolation, making it difficult for students to develop comprehensive ideas across disciplines. However, we believe it is critical for students to understand that each discipline informs and is connected to one another. This position can help to frame classroom assignments as interdisciplinary tasks and projects that require knowledge from other classes and other subjects. It can force students to tap into different intelligences and develop the habit of synthesizing knowledge.

We use an interdisciplinary approach to STEAM education which we provide in our Digital Explorers program. Projects such as coding microbits or designing web pages require students to apply multiple intelligences and areas of knowledge learned in school and beyond, allowing students a space not only for STEAM but also for general enrichment and creativity. This year, we reorganized our course offering into four thematic pillars to ensure students experiment with multiple topics, whether it be esports, robotics, or shout-out streaming, with the intention of providing a variety of activities. Currently, we are cultivating lessons in artificial intelligence (ai) to guide students to better understand the strengths and limitations of Chat GPT in the classroom, as well as its current and future impact on tech careers.

Creating an exploratory environment

To facilitate our interdisciplinary approach, we believe that the classroom environment should be one that encourages experimentation and imagination. Students should be given opportunities where they can “play” with technology and should be challenged to apply their creativity along with their problem-solving skills. Our instructors are subject matter experts who help them explore by providing scenarios and simulations to solve.

In an esports class, instructors teach students basic techniques associated with manipulating video game characters. In each class, some students are given a challenge that may require them to apply their technical knowledge along with their problem-solving skills. Other students take on the role of cameramen and presenters and are challenged to provide a detailed stream of the game in a fun and enthusiastic manner. Few bugs are corrected. Instead, instructors work on polishing the quality of the production by offering additional information about the equipment and its capabilities.

This exploratory approach requires a learning environment that facilitates flexibility. We partner with School Specialty Four years ago, we built our Innovation Lab and they have helped us tremendously, both by providing us with new ideas and reinforcing them along the way. The furniture we installed was mobile, multimodal, and comfortable. This environment helped us create a “judgment-free zone” where students can make mistakes without facing consequences.

Walking into one of our innovation labs, you see couches, movable chairs, or even cushions on the floor for students to form circles around to help build a sense of collaboration. These modular pieces of furniture – smart TVs, laptops, and gaming consoles – encourage collaboration and experimentation, while allowing for autonomy and creativity. It may seem a bit chaotic, but a sense of organization is implicitly present in the space. While the traditional classroom is often centered around paper and pencil or even a laptop, our sessions focus on tools and materials that require hands-on learning objects. Together with the instructor, students are forced to cultivate a sense of curiosity by exposing them to new ideas and concepts to explore.

Most of the time, the Crockett Foundation Innovation Lab encourages us to ask ourselves, “What could happen if we had one more hour with students? What could happen if they had the right console, an extra laptop, a smart TV, or a drone? What could we all gain from that extra investment?”

Every day we get closer to answering those questions. With a strong belief in exploration, experimentation and education, the Crockett Foundation can inspire the next generation of inventors, technical entrepreneurs, engineers and designers – the next generation of innovators and explorers.