In January I wrote a blog post about helping the kindergarten students learn how to code their Beebots. Since then they've gotten more time to explore and to try out some other strategies!
The first thing we did was set up the mat with different colored paths for the Beebots to follow. All of the students start on red (the simplest) and work their way up through orange, yellow, and then green (the most complex). For students in need of an additional challenge I added pink "bridges" that connected paths into a much longer track!
The first strategy we practiced was physically moving the Beebot after pressing each button. This helped the students more easily anticipate which direction the Beebot needed to go along the path, step by step.
After all of the students had an opportunity to employ that technique we introduced another strategy: "Driver and Navigator". (These are terms used in the Code.org curriculum!) This method pairs students with a partner and ensures that students are working together and taking turns.
The Driver is the student who is allowed to touch the Beebot. She places the Beebot at the correct spot on the mat and she is the only one who is allowed to press the buttons. The Navigator gives the Driver directions to follow. He uses a picture of the Beebot to move along the path (I call the picture "Babybot") to help him determine each step. When I introduced this concept to the children I asked them to imagine the driver and the person in the passenger seat giving the driver directions. Of course, the "navigator" is never allowed to reach over and grab the steering wheel!
Since Beebot and Babybot aren't always facing the same way, we added stickers to them both to indicate the left and right turn buttons. Not only are the students getting extra practice using these words, but their joint programming is going much more smoothly!
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| Mrs. Geremia, our Tech Fellow, has been an amazing coach for both the students and the teachers! Thank you SO much for all of your support, encouragement, and amazing ideas, Mrs. G!!! |
