Slow & Steady Start to Robotics League

Starting a VEX Robotics League in TUSD has not been as smooth sailing as we once thought it might be back in July. Overwhelmed coaches with their numerous regular teaching responsibilities had a hard time getting teams off the ground. Luckily, we decided to go small this first year and hold one low-pressure scrimmage in November and three regular competitions still to come. As I look into  2015, I will be focusing this blog on robotics to try and document the process of building a VEX Robotics League in hopes that we all can learn from our mistakes and digital lessons learned.

Lesson #1: To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first. ~William Shakespeare

Although I was hoping that teams would pick up right where we left off in July, nothing could be further from the truth. Two of the six schools totally dismantled their robots to start completely over. These two schools also added 16 & 27 team members to create four teams at each site. Orchard Hills School divided up the four students who attended the Summer Robotics Program to provide one leader for each team, while Columbus Tustin kept the four original team members together and created three new teams that are still needing to be taught the basics of programming. 

The other four sites added a few new students to their original summer teams. Applications were used by the sites with the most interest in robotics to narrow down who was selected for the team. It was not until the end of October that the teams were finalized. 

Lesson # 2: Provide Differentiated Support

After visiting each site,  I realized that each team had a different set of needs. The two schools who expanded their robotics programs were in need of curriculum and instruction. There were too many students who did not understand the basics of building and programming and they were running into issues that could easily be addressed with a lesson. This is one place that I have been able to jump in by creating informational slide shows and co-teaching with the coaches to provide direct instruction and support. 

The sites with one team each had issues related to expired software, missing parts, and not enough time on task. The larger programs seem to meet more consistently with a greater amount being accomplished during each meeting. However, the larger programs have still yet to catch up to the smaller programs who are using at least the chassis and sometimes even the lift from their summer designs.  The increased pressure of starting over in the Fall seems to have created teams with a stronger focus.

However, the one thing I have found all sites to be struggling with is properly following and documenting the design process in their journals. Some need more detailed annoatated drawings while others lack journal entries explaining their thought process during each meeting. Most importantly, decisions are not being made by the entire team. Many students are making decisions without sketching or communicating their ideas to the other members. This has led to frustrated team dynamics and my goal of checking journals on every visit!

Lesson # 3: Break the Ice With a Low-Pressure Scrimmage

The majority of students on the newly created robotics teams had yet to see a real competition ring, practice driving, or see the game "Sky-Rise" played live. On November 15, we set up the game and introduced the teams to the audience. We did not keep score or use a tournament schedule. We simply just asked who was ready and found four teams ready to play a match. Only one team from Columbus Tustin was able to participate while the three new teams had yet to build a robot. All four teams from Orchard Hills competed without lifts by pushing cubes with chassis only. However, this was a feat in itself to get all the joysticks and programs working properly.

We set up the gym with six tables along the perimeter for each of the schools. Teams stayed at or behind their tables as they quickly worked on tightening screws and fixing programs. We only allowed the eight players to be at the corners of the ring while playing to allow the audience to get a better view of the game. We also set up an iPad in camera mode and connected it with Apple TV to a projector to show the match on the big screen. We learned in July that a crowd surrounding the competition ring makes it so that only a few people can see what is happening during the match.

One high school student helped referee and provide commentary using a microphone to help explain to the audience what was happening during the quick two minute match. He also helped check the robots at the beginning of the match for violations.

A few things I am going to change for the next competition:

• Provide clear set of rules to the teams prior to arriving
• Go through the basic set of the rules with the audience using a slide show in the background
• Recruit more High School Students
• Teams check in at 3:30 pm instead of 4:00 pm to provide enough time for checking robots and allow for scouting
• Provide bus transportation to allow all students to attend

Although we did not keep score, the students felt successful and had an absolute blast. The whirlwind of setting up, running, and breaking down the competition ring left me exhausted. But, it is in times like these that we are the most rewarded for our efforts. The looks on their faces says it all. These experiences may possibly be changing the career paths of young engineers. 

Coaching Along the Pathway of Change

As I begin my second year as a digital learning coach (DLC) for the Tustin Unified School District, I am reflecting on a few strategies that really seemed to work for me last year. The goal is to help those I coach to change, to look at curriculum in a new light, to integrate technology in a way that  may have seemed unimaginable one decade ago. Ed tech has come a long way, but many teachers are just beginning their journey along their own pathway of change.

Steve Regur, CEO and co-founder of Educators Co-Operative, has spent several days over the past year preparing the DLCs of TUSD with communication techniques and coaching strategies to help us connect and promote positive change in those that we coach. The following lessons learned all come from insights gained from our master coach.

Lesson #1
"Change is like the grievance cycle, they have to let go of something." 
I have found that teachers grieve when they give up the systems and assignments they have used for years. Often, they try and design their digital classroom to look and feel similar to their traditional classroom. Although this may be a good starting place for the novice, I have learned to provide multiple examples of how workflow and assignments can be re-defined to try and get them away from their patterns of thinking. We then narrow it down, through cognitive coaching and questioning methods, to the one idea that seems to have generated the most interest and just pushes the boundaries enough to make the teacher feel comfortably uncomfortable. After a good trial run to really get an idea of workflow, lesson design, and management of this new strategy, we reflect and re-evaluate whether we want to stay on this path or change course.

Lesson #2
Self-efficacy is an important tool.
According to Kendra Cherry, "self-efficacy, or the belief in your own abilities to deal with various situations, can play a role in not only how you feel about yourself, but whether or not you successfully achieve your goals in life." Teachers seem to respond well when you build on their current abilities, rather than always trying something new. Apps are great, but they are secondary to the concepts we teach.  I have learned to build tech integration skills through focusing on the  concepts and curriculum teachers know so well, thus also building confidence and motivation through the tool of self-efficacy. Never forget that veteran teachers are content experts!

Lesson #3
Be aware of cognitive overload!
As described in a highly quoted article by Miller in 1956, our working memory has the ability to process about seven elements of new information at one time (plus or minus two). After this, we reach cognitive overload and have a hard time processing these elements into schema to store them in long-term memory. Luckily, long-term memory does not have the same limitations of working memory and expertise can develop as we learn to automate these schemas. The trick is to figure out when the person you are coaching has reached the magic number seven. I have learned to ask teachers repeat steps and processes on their own to help gauge if they are able to take on any more elements of instruction. Those that catch on quickly probably already had some of these schemas archived in long-term memory.

Good luck to all the Ed Tech Coaches out there as we begin a new school year. It just keeps on getting better every year!

A New Frontier

For the past few years, I have been designing curriculum for the Tustin Public Schools Foundation Summer STEAM program with a team of incredibly talented educators. Usually, we design a four-week course, four hours a day, four days a week for five classes of 3rd through 5th graders and five classes of 6th through 8th graders. All the time and effort put into this program begins in January and takes up most of my summer. The program attracts some of the best teachers in our district and they do a remarkable job of making STEAM curriculum fun and relevant. However, this summer, we added an advanced robotics course and it was a huge success!

All of our middle schools in TUSD have Project Lead the Way trained teachers and robotics will be offered at all six middle schools this school year. Several of us teachers have talked about competing in the VEX robotics competitions and one school even tried it out last year. So, our STEAM team decided that this summer was a great opportunity to build student capacity in robotics and leadership. We invited four students from each school to begin the process of starting  a robotics league in our district. I was lucky enough to teach this program with a friend and collaborator, Jacque Magner. I learned many things this summer, but here are my top three:

Lesson 1: Do not be afraid of the struggle!

The students that struggled the most, learned the most. We had five of six teams copy a six bar lift that one of our teacher aides brought as an example on the first day of class. Although they all had different versions of his robot, they built their robots much more quickly than anticipated and focused more on programming and practicing driving in the final fourth week. With my encouragement, one team went in a different direction and failed time and time again. I was discouraged with them until we all realized that this team had actually learned the most from the design process. They changed their competition strategy at the last minute to compensate for the design flaws and did surprisingly well!

Lesson 2: Bring in the Experts
Although I have experience teaching robotics, I am far from an expert and can only offer ideas from my own experiences. We had three high school students and one college student with us the entire four weeks and they were invaluable. I will continue to bring them in as I visit each team next year at their home schools. We also had the privilege of meeting Chip Foose from the show Overhaulin and Kenny Pfitzer from the show West Coast Customs who is now working with Foose Designs. Foose showed students how to think out of the box as he sketched an original design after hearing about the robots' criteria and constraints. Pfitzer jumped right in and began giving mechanical and structural ideas that helped the performance of each robot. Pfitzer was so impressed with the program, he said that he will be coming back to help our teams again in the future. My advice is to bring in as many parents, students, and community members that are willing to offer ideas and support to your program.

Lesson 3: Keep People in the Loop
Each week of the program we sent home a newsletter to help keep parents informed. We also sent this newsletter to the teachers and future coaches at each school site to make sure they felt informed and connected to the program.. It is also important that we bridge the communication between the teachers, the Tustin Public Schools Foundation, and the people in charge at the district office. This program is a bit grass roots in the sense that it began with teacher leaders and is now gaining support and momentum from those at the top. We need everyone on board to make this happen, so the more we communicate, the better.

Pictured to the left, a team explains their design to our Superintendent, Dr. Gregory Franklin, and our Assistant Superintendent, Dr. Crystal Turner. They have shown interest and support since hearing about this idea back in January. We are very thankful for all who have helped make this happen and we are looking forward to the year ahead.

Making Time for Social Media

As teachers wind down for summer, my job begins to get busier. As a curriculum writer and teacher of the Tustin Public Schools Foundation Summer STEAM program, I work many hours preparing for the summer courses. Although it becomes tough to find time for social media, I try my hardest to at least check in once a day to keep in touch with the fast pace of the ed tech world.

Lesson Learned: Keeping connected with other educators and the latest news in the ed tech world is as important as any other type of professional development.

Listen to their Complaints

I was told at the beginning of the year that by listening to people complain, you can figure out their needs. I think this bit of advice has been the most useful as a new coach. I found this particularly true during the month of March, but really allowed myself to not get irritated by the complaints and to look deeper into what I can offer these teachers.

Lesson #2
Find a balance between figuring out what teachers need through their complaints and re-direction by bringing it all back to what we can do for the students.

Taking the Plunge

I have been wanting to start this blog all year as I have been learning numerous lessons as a digital learning coach for the Tustin Unified School District. I hope you learn along with me as I continue on this journey for another year.

Lesson #1: Forget Your Vision

Vision can be an asset when you are trying to move forward in life. However, while learning to integrate new technologies in education, we must forget what we already know. Of course best practices will always remain, but let yourself be open to the evolution of lesson design when you trouble shoot the integration of new technologies with your students.