Thanks, Neil, for your message.  As our colleague Jenn Cross noted below, much of the teacher support comes in the form of repeated professional development opportunities.  Many of the teachers in the program have participated for multiple years, and the professional development has changed as their needs have changed. For example, early PD focused on the basics of building and programming robots.  Later PD workshops introduced more complex technical topics like working with sensors.

You asked whether teachers have been sharing ideas and curriculum for others to model.  I agree that's an important component.  It seems to me (as one of the project's evaluators) that having those models really helps teachers shape robotics integration into a deep and sustainable activity.  This happened a lot in one of the partner school districts, where a 'Robot Theater' approach was developed and adapted for English/Language arts, social studies, and music classes.  Our project colleague Sue Mellon described some of these projects in last year's showcase (http://stemforall2016.videohall.com/presentatio...).  

Regarding your question about costs... there are several possible 'costs' to doing this type of integration (not just for this project, but for any project integrating computing into non-technical disciplines).  There is a monetary cost, of course, for materials.  But there is also a cost of time - will introducing technology displace time otherwise spent on the disciplinary subject?  What we've seen in this project is that it doesn't have to.  In the Romeo and Juliet curriculum example, students are engaging in legitimate disciplinary practices - such as close reading of text and interpreting symbolism - while making their robots.  This was part of the work the teachers did while creating their curriculum activities - they provided time and structure (e.g., design sheets, grading rubrics) to ensure students engaged with the discipline while they were designing and building their robots.  

 

Hi Mariel,

 

Thanks for checking out Arts & Bots and for your question!

 

The Community Robotics, Education and Technology Empowerment Lab (CREATE Lab) at Carnegie Mellon University (http://www.cmucreatelab.org/) is a research lab within the Robotics Institute at CMU. Our research projects focus on the application of technologies -- such as robotics -- to the needs of and challenges faced by communities and educational environments.

 

Different projects from the CREATE Lab have different structures for teacher participation and engagement. The Arts & Bots program in this video provided training to participating teachers multiple times over the course of four years. Other CREATE Lab projects provide a one-off training session to teachers. Some of our projects work with entire communities, instead of schools, and engage with those communities in a wide variety of ways.

 

Please let me know if you have other questions,

 

Jennifer

Postdoctoral Fellow

CREATE Lab, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

Thanks, Nicole, for your questions.  To build on what Karen said (below), I think the craft materials are important for encouraging creativity because they're very open-ended.  Students building robots out of cardboard or recycled materials have to solve a number of problems while building, including (sometimes) how to get the robot to stand up! Students were challenged to think creatively about the technology design and about how to express their ideas about social studies/art/language arts in a non-traditional medium.

I agree that supporting teachers over time is important and having teachers network with others around projects is very valuable.

Hi Lien,

For this project, we were working with schools in Allegheny Valley School district (just outside Pittsburgh) and schools in Mingo County, WV.  AVSD is a suburban district, and the area was once home to many manufacturing jobs, which are no longer as plentiful. Mingo County is rural - schools are dispersed across a large geographic area where jobs in mining are no longer plentiful.  So both districts are eager to provide their students with opportunities that might lead to careers in CS, and to have engaging experiences that motivate their students to take more courses in CS.

As the project evaluators, we focused on teacher implementation and efficacy and the ways in which they were able to integrate and sustain robotics work.  We are analyzing our last wave of data, and will hopefully publish results later this year.  

Our colleagues at CMU's CREATE Lab are focused on student outcomes (including interest).  They have done some preliminary analyses and published conference papers which you can find on their website: http://www.cmucreatelab.org/publications.  They will also publish more about student results later this year.

Thank you for your interest!

 

 

Thanks, Selma.  It's been a pleasure for us to work with such creative teachers and administrators on this project.