Sunday, June 30, 2013

Making with Legos

     This week as I'm gathering toys to make a robot for #clmooc, I'm reflecting on  my own student's experiences to "Make" with Legos.  Of course I felt totally unqualified to attempt the Senior Citizen learning based project in my own classroom, but like so many other things that happen to land in my lap- I couldn't let this opportunity pass me by.  Besides, How hard could it Be?  http://www.firstlegoleague.org/

 

     So, I signed our team "Lego Masters" up to compete in a local competion thinking that I had the entire year to figure this thing out.  I mean who else would have suspected the local competition would be a mere three months away?!? 

 

     Meanwhile a box arrives containing a large roll out floor matt decorated with meaningless symbols all over it.  Another smaller box containing thousands of tiny Legos also arrives in the mail.  How exciting!


 

     At first my bright idea was to have my club members sort all the tiny Legos.  However it soon became painfully apparent that my ten recruits had difficulty looking at a diagram and matching it to the concrete physical representation.  I quickly realized that our team needed to create names for the pieces to help with the communication process as we organized our building materials.

 

      Building the models offered the the first opportunity for our members to freely share.  Some students had great difficulty building while other students had excellent spatial skills.  It was heartwarming to observe many of my struggling learners were considered to be expert builders by their peers.  The hierarchy of the traditional classroom was turning upside down! 

 

     Once the models were constructed, we still had no idea how to program our robot.  When I heard about a local Lego team, I arranged a visit to learn from that incredibly talented teacher.  Upon my arrival, the teacher laughed when questioned about the programming.  She stated, "The students do all the programming.  Let's ask one of the kids to show you." 

 

     This was a turning point for my team.  They no longer could rely on me.  Once I showed them the video of girls programming by trial and error my team become more confident to try new methods.   It took awhile for them to embrace problem solving, and accept that they would have failures.  Lots of them!  However they began to work together to figure out what is working and asked each other for their opinions. 

 

     Every member of my team discovered new abilities about themselves.  They began to see each other in a different light as they tested ideas.  Quickly pushing buttons on the robot while perfectly positioning it to guarantee a successful mission was the rarest skill.   Of course we needed minds who could fix anything!  While both of those jobs were important we still needed a patient computer programmer.  Other team members were great problem solvers who had unique ideas for the team to attempt.  Every member became important to our discussions. 

 

     Of course the Lego competition was not just about building the robot and programming it for successful missions.  Although that seemed to be our favorite part.  Our team also practiced working as a team to solve problems and build things without an adult's direction.  Additionally they created a new communication device to help Senior Citizens with dementia which they incorporated into a skit. 

 

     Although this project seemed way over my head at the beginning of the school year, I am thankful I took the risk.   Boy, was I ever surprised when our team placed third in the local competition!


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1 comment:

  1. Great narrative here. Very useful to see how you went from zero to hero. And clear enough to inspire others to go for it. Unmitigated success. Thanks.

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