Program our Minds: using robots to teach computer programming.Springfield Middle School - Jillian Baker Technology teacher

Over 10 days, technology students will learn how to program robots. On the first day, students will be given a pretest to determine how much they currently know about programming. This will help us establish a baseline for their understanding. Then, students will do readings and watch videos to learn how computers function and how they use programs to accomplish those functions. After the introduction, students will work in teams of 2 or 3 to work through tutorials that will teach them how to program their robots to do simple things like move forward, stop when encountering an object, turn different directions and so on. After they have learned the basics of programming, they will be given the challenge of completing the Alien Encounter Activity and the Race Against Time Activity. Students will document their success with digital cameras and create a presentation to share with the class. Students will be evaluated by their ability to complete the tasks with the robots.