5th grade

Technology Careers Assembly

Mimi Onuoha and Surya Mattu present in the Meetinghouse.

Mimi Onuoha and Surya Mattu present in the Meetinghouse.

This week the Middle School was honored to host a panel of amazing technology entrepreneurs, programmers, and artists who spoke with our students about the wide variety of ways they solve problems, create products, and use computer programming to redefine our relationship to our phones and social media streams.

Many of the panel members were Friends Seminary parents who work in technology fields, and several amazing parents inspired the idea for the assembly and worked with me to plan the panel and find contacts in the industry.  We saw a photo of the birth of Twitter (before it was known as Twitter) and viewed maps of GPS phone data, visualizations of Instagram health-related hashtags, and devices invented to re-power cell phones during Hurricane Sandy.

Our students impressed me by asking questions about the privacy of their information online, preferences for programming languages (Java or Python, anyone?), and how wireless networks work.  Based on the resulting conversations this week, many students walked away with a broader idea of how technology might be used in their future lives, and more questions about how it is changing the world around them.

5th Grade NXT Projects

An NXT Drawbot.

An NXT “Drawbot”

This year after programming their NXT robots to solve basic sensor and movement challenges, I gave the 5th graders a choice activity to end the quarter.  We had already programmed our robots to move and turn, detect obstacles in a “Roomba” challenge, and navigate basic mazes using the Ultrasonic sensor.  Teams of students worked on challenges that motivated them. Some students wanted to engage more with building custom robots, and others dug into programming challenges.  It was amazing to see them use their troubleshooting skills to actively find solutions to problems and test out their ideas.

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An NXT “Sumobot”

There was so much industry and excitement in the room.  Most students chose to either build and program “sumo” robots or “drawbots.”  Sumo robots used their light sensor to compete against other robots and stay in the sumo ring.  Drawbots created original pieces of art and shapes on paper, a difficult engineering challenge.

Giving students more choice and opportunities to differentiate their learning is one of my personal goals as a teacher, particularly since I believe in the pedagogy of problem-based learning and maker education. It is not easy for multiple groups to be working on so many different projects in the same room at the same time!  However, I was inspired when I noticed how many times I saw students helping each other, collaborating, and learning together.  I’m looking forward to coming up with more choice options for next year!