For Cycle 3 in the STEM Lab, our friend Robo-Mouse returns to play with our kindergarten and first grade classes. This is a new experience for the kindergarten, while first grade was introduced to Robo-Mouse last year. In either case, this is a chance for students to apply their computer programming skills without the screen.
For kindergarten, the unit started with a review of the skills and concepts they have learned so far this year using Code.org. They are reminded of the difference between and algorithm and a program. We go over the strategies they use for debugging their programs. After having their memories refreshed, they worked in their Code.org courses taking turns as the driver (person operating the Ipad) and navigator (person who watches for errors and offers advice).
Next, students are introduced to the Robo-mouse and how to appropriately handle it. (This is an important lesson as the Robo-mouse lacks in durability what it gains in affordability.) This first day is, for the most part, an exploration and discovery kind of day. Their only assignment that day is to build an L shape with the mouse at one end and the cheese at the other, then to program the mouse to the cheese. It's simple and it gives them a feel for assembling the maze pieces and understanding the difference between the turns in Code.org and on the Robo-mouse. In Code.org "turn" and "move" are accomplished with a single command while on the robot "turn" is one command and "move forward" is another. This is a bit of an adjustment for them, but they have mostly figured it out pretty quickly.
After a day of exploration, students practice building mazes from cards and programming the solutions to those mazes. The mazes become progressively more challenging as their skills improve. One of the challenges of the cards has nothing to do with programming, just building it to match the picture. I have found over the last couple years of teaching with Robo-Mouse that this is good for their spatial reasoning. A couple days into this, once they are comfortable using the cards to build their mazes, I introduce the algorithm cards. These are a way for them to keep track of the steps of their programs as number of steps in each solution increases. In a Code.org program every step is easily visible on the screen. Using Robo-mouse, however, once they enter a step into the robot, it is invisible. They can only see if a step is correct when the machine executes it at the intended time. When they watch the cards while the robot runs the program, they are able to see where the program breaks down and make adjustments at that pint rather than returning to square one.
As for the first graders, the unit starts in a similar fashion. Students review programming concepts in their Code.org courses before having an exploration day with Robo-mouse. They are reintroduced to the algorithm cards and debugging strategies. One thing I have them do is record an original maze on grid paper. Basically they are making their own maze cards. I have them record a solution to their maze on the card using arrows like those on the algorithm cards.
First grade's big task with Robo-mouse was using it as an element of a story retell. This started with them creating a story map for a fairy tale or story they like. (I used "This Is Not My Hat" as my example.) The then quartered that paper so that one part of the story was at each corner of a square. Students programmed the robot to go around the square, telling the main events of the story at it traveled from one corner to the next. They found that it is is not as easy as it sounds to tell summarize a story in the 30 seconds it takes Robo-mouse to run the perimeter of the square. It was fun to watch them practice finishing what they were saying before the mouse turned the next corner. I think that in the next iteration of this unit, I will let them design pieces to be the setting and costumes for the robot so that it can act as a character in the story.
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