ROBOTICS INTRIGUE MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS AND BUILD STEM SKILLS

摘要

Following the completion of this unit, it was interesting to see how intrigued students began to get towards robotics and authentic problems. Not only did they reflect and share other possible solutions or thinking about a robot that could navigate around a whole town or state, but they thought of alternate problems with more dynamic solution requirements such as cleaning sports stadiums with steps or designing something for the school to collect attendance. Also, STEM skills appeared to grow not only in the engineering and technology class, but also from the opinions of math and science teachers as they worked through scaling and electricity units. Students enjoyed working the open-ended design brief with minimal direct instruction and seeing how their math and science skills could actually be applied to a technology problem such as building a robot. Career and workplace skills also seemed to show an improvement; for example, the students' ability to work in teams and collaborate with others flourished as they gained an understanding of how hard it is to get successful plans formulated within a group.