Last week I was invited to visit Mrs. Burnetta's kindergarten class to teach her students about computer science. I was super excited about it. Since I am teaching 6th grade computer science, I had many manipulatives and ideas, but I decided to bring the Ozobots and markers to her class.
First, I introduced computer science to the students by telling them that computer science is used to teach you how to think and how to solve problems. I also explained to them that, computer scientists look for the problems, fixes them, and tests their programs again to see if it works correctly. I explained that sometimes things don't work on the first try and that it is okay. That is called learning!
In order for the students to understand problem solving, I had the students verbally command Mrs. Burnetta to walk to the door in her classroom. Students had to use logical thinking to command their teacher to correctly walk to the door without missing any details. This included commands such as, move forward 5 steps, and turn left or turn right. Once they successfully completed that program, I gave them another task to have Mrs. Burnetta walk to the white board and draw a square. Students quickly realized that every detail was important and that if something did not work correctly, they had to reset and start again. I told them they were writing a computer program which gave instructions to tell the computer, (in this case Mrs. Burnetta), to do something. I compared it to a cooking recipe.
During this exercise, students repeated certain vocabulary words such as, program, commands, reset, logical thinking, and problem solving.
After introducing basic computer science concepts to the students, I decided to teach them about Ozobot. They used the Mother's Day board and the static codes to command Ozobot to make a u-turn, spin, move slow or move fast. The students did an excellent job coloring by number and staying in the lines.
Once they were done coloring their boards, it was time to test Ozobot. They knew if they didn't color neatly, that there was a chance Ozobot would not read the static code. A few things the students noticed was that Ozobot flashed it's lights when it read a static code, it turned around, moved slow, went off the board, and didn't read the static code. The students had to fix their boards accordingly and test the bot again.
After they completed the Mother's Day board, I allowed them to create their own board. Students were paired up and created their own boards using all of the colors, (blue, red, green, and black), to command their bot. Students noticed that Ozobot had different color lights on when it went over different color lines. If Ozobot did not work, they had to adjust the lines and start over again. They were truly engaged and never gave up!
In conclusion, I am extremely proud of all Mrs. Burnetta's students. Never underestimate your students. They can truly learn a difficult concept if presented to them in a way they can understand it. When I asked the students what they learned, one student replied, 'I learned how to solve problems and how to think', and another replied, 'I learned about computer programming.'
Thank you for having me in your class Mrs. Burnetta! I hope we can continue to collaborate on educating our students in computer science and bridge the gap for them too.
