Ready, Set, Grob!

       I am very confident in teaching STEM in my classroom. I feel this way because my eyes have been opening up more and more with every STEM course that I take on how I already teach this. The advantages I have is that I have incorporated it for the past two years in my class during science, during half day instruction, and on STEM Fridays if we have gotten our work done during the week that we needed to get done to stay on pace with the pacing guide. Other advantages is that I have many many years of observation of other teachers incorporating STEM into their classroom lessons, I have one year of observation and assisting in a 6th grade STEM Gifted Education class, I have one year of STEM Teacher Quality PD that came with a two week course in the summer, and now I have the knowledge of this current STEM Certificate Program. The obstacles that I have that's now not a big obstacle, is that the school I'm going to doesn't have much in the way of STEM so I will have ...

Coding, the universal language of computers and other electronic or mobile devices. Playing withe the Dash and Dot robots, as I mentioned in a previous blog, was my introduction to coding in a formal way of, this is what coding is. I was then a Grade Level Instructional Aid assisting two 6th grade teachers in a Gifted STEM school. I fell in love!! But now, since I have been further educated on coding since my Instructional Aid role has now passed, I have been introduced to coding in the form of different computer and phone/tablet apps and the frustration is real. How you get your robot or characters to move is different because the way you get them to move is different per app. Sometimes there's significantly more codes that get the move to happen and sometimes there's only one step. As you go higher on the coding block, the more complex things get, so you really have to want to code and love to code. I do believe that ALL people can code, again it's a matter of want. I hav...

 Everyone loves a good robot right? I love playing with robots. I have learned so much with them. I have learned that coding can be so much fun, more fun than I thought it could be. I mean, I learned about coding through the Dash and Dot robots roughly 6 years ago when I worked at a STEM school with 6th graders. What I learned then and it was confirmed today, coding is giving directions to your robot from a computer or controller and that there are many way to give those directions. I was given the privilege to work with the Sphero robot yesterday. I would LOVE to get a class set of these. They are very easy and simple to work with, especially as a coding for beginners robot. I don't think I've seen so many adults so happy about the smaller robots in a while. Below are the 3 drive modes I chose to drive my Sphero through the obstacle course with and us playing a soccer style game as a class in the hall. Soccer style game in the hall: My drives I chose for my obsta...

In class we learned about these 5 competitive program:  Doodle for Google ,  Rube Goldberg ,  Future City ,  First Lego League Jr . and,  Global Cardboard Challenge   Each person in the class chose a program that they wanted to know more about and got to work with the others that also chose the program that you did. I chose the Rube Goldberg Program. Rube Goldberg, I chose this program because it's the one I know the least about that's also hands on and I know that my students would appreciate this program and engage in it. The past 6 years, I've had to do a lot of observing students to see how they learn and what their favorite ways to learn are so that I can be an effective grade level teacher when I was done being an Instructional Aid and ISS-Supervisor. I observed that a lot of my students love learning science related topics as well as art hands on. I also chose Rube Goldberg because it looks fun and frustrating at the same time and I'm always up for a...

                                 Legos for learning in the class is great in opinion. I believe that it engages students to learn more hands memorization, communication, collaboration, and extreme creativity. I have experienced Legos being used for history lessons, for science lessons, and for math lessons. I have also seen Legos used in robotics for coding purposes. Finally, Legos are used to just have fun without a "limit" on your creativity. The goal of teaching is to guide our youth in the skills they need to not only obtain a job and keep a job in the future as they get older but to be great citizens of their communities now.       Working with Legos allows for students to work through their frustrations building their persistence and allowing that stamina to get stronger. It allows students to fail and fail some more and get back up and try it again until they succeed. It ...

The picture of above is from Google. This picture shows all of the skills that are engaged in problem solving. There are so many techniques to problem solving and books that teach these techniques. In this blog I'm going to tell you which problem solving techniques are my favorite. 1. Engineering Design Cycle / Engineering Design Process / Design Thinking Process     This process is the same no matter the title. The number of steps and name of the steps may differ depending on what title you google but essentially the process is the same. This technique I first learned in 2021-2022 school year through the MySci  partners that my school district works with for our district's science curriculum. It follows 6 to 7 steps and sometimes google shows 5 steps to creating a solution to a problem. In this technique, there is a problem or need that needs to be identified, you have to come up with multiple designs and solutions to the problem, choosing the best solution, testing that...

      In class we learned that there's a debate as to whether or not process or product are more important than the other.     I would say that you can't have one without the other. They are both important. No one thing is greater than the other. In order to produce a quality product the process is important. The goal is to keep consumers coming back to purchase the product or in an educational setting the goal is to create a scientist mind set or that growth mind set in creating a solution to a problem or to a need. The process forces you to slow down and answer such questions as to what is the problem or need, what is the solution, how do I get to the desired solution, was the plan to the solution successful, if not what needs to be done or changed to get to the desired outcome and so on. The product, which is what most consumers mostly care about, is important because you want the consumers to come back time and again. If the product that is produced, isn't a...

 The 5Cs that are considered with STEM/STEAM.  Creativity.  Communication.  Collaboration.  Curiosity.  Critical Thinking.  I don't think that there's a specific order that these are supposed to be in. I couldn't find any research that says that they have to be in any specific order, HOWEVER, I do think that curiosity should be the very first C because in order for any interest to be peeked or a problem to be solved, or for a need to be identified, I feel like a person's curiosity has to be sparked. Do you agree? Here's my hand drawn graphic to represent what the 5Cs look like to me.

S cience                                                                                                    S cience T echnology                                                                                            T echnology E ngineering                                                                              ...

 I can't believe so much time has passed. My 1st and 2nd year of teaching has been a lot. Time is flying and its a lot to manage on top of having a family. But it's been great experience. There's been so many tears and frustrations but there's also been a lot of great and happy times, a lot of celebrations as well. In finishing my first two years of teaching, I have finished my mentoring program that comes with being new to the district but also new to teaching. I am currently enrolled to in a STEM Certification class and it's been a blast. I will have 10 post coming up about that, 5 of which I will be writing tonight because I didn't write one a night since class started, I chose to write the 5 in one day mostly because I've been falling asleep almost as soon as I get home every night..😦I completed a STEMpact / STEM Teacher Quality program this past year, also my second year of teaching, that was both stressful and fun all in one. It was a great experience...