There are lots of Robotics classes available now for your middle and high school students. we know, we’ve reviewed and actually taught quite a few of them. And although they all have their strengths, we found that for us, there was something that didn’t sit right with them. Many of them are focused on preparing students to enter competitions. To us this feels a bit like teaching for a test grade, rather than teaching to instill a love and mastery of the skill.
That is why we’ve developed our curriculum to take a slightly different approach to teaching this STEAM program. The focus of all of our classes is to guide each of our students to discover and develop their natural skills and aptitudes for all things math and science, while building upon the skills and concepts they’ve already learned in school.
One of the saddest things that we hear from students – and we hear it a lot- is, “OK, I have learned trigonometry, but what do I use it for?”
We do this by giving them practical uses for the mathematics that they already know (trigonometry, equations of a straight line) or those that they will be learning soon (statistics, calculus). In our Robotics classes we do this by using the Lego Mindstorms system. The Lego system excels in its ability to put mathematical concepts into practice.
When teaching maths, physics, or engineering it is tempting to start with the equation (eg the equation of motion, s=ut+12at2), and then teach the theory. The practical application of the math comes third, if at all. The thing that is missed is the description of the original problem that the maths, theory, and equations were designed to solve. Following the natural problem solving process is the most natural way for students to learn, and it is the approach that we take in our classes.
All classes start off with a problem to solve. Students work through possible solutions to the problems, and the maths behind them (focus is on the mathematical concepts not the details, once the concepts are understood the details come easily). If appropriate, equations summarizing the solution to the problem are discussed, but these are secondary to understanding the concepts within the problem solution.
By following this natural problem solving process, the students first get the context of the problem, and then work through the practice and theory of the solution. Starting with the context removes the “but what do I use it for?” problem.