E. Apathy 677 Robotics

What is the link between Tinkering, hard play and the growth mindset Growth mindset I really enjoyed watching the Tedx talk by Carol Dweck. She had some fantastic points about how the wording of what teachers say can have a huge impact of student’s success. When students are faced with a difficult experience or problem with a fixed mindset they realize the problem is too hard for them and run away. They know its to hard and have the mindset of why should I try it because I am just going to fail. When students feel like they have failed it sets them up to not want to try and take risks with difficult problems again in the future. This mindset can have disastrous consequences later in their life (Dweck 2007). In contrast when students have a growth mindset students believe they “believe they can get smart and put in the extra time and effort (mindsetworks.com). I also liked how Carol spoke about how we praise our students. She reminded me that when students are only working ...

I am slowly getting to see how much I have to learn about the topics covered in this class. I am so excited to start playing around with the kit and learning more about robotics. As far as the topic this week I had fun responding to it because I have a personal connection to Maker Space. As I am working on my Masters I am not in a regular classroom, instead I teach for an after school program. The room I teach in is actual the old Maker Space room. I thought it was interesting that there is a sign outside the room made of wires, and knects, unifx cubes, and other materials common in a Maker Space. Most of the kids I had were unfamiliar with even the basic unfamiliar materials that were used like pieces of a computer. I think it's interesting that the room was not successful because they had so many resources including Ozobots, and coding games. Right now it seems that the biggest hurdle was not having enough teachers interested in exposing their students to what was available in t...

Do you believe Constructionism brings any new ideas to the table as a theory of education? Why or Why not?  I think that constructionism brings a lot of new ideas to the classroom.  In the school I work in there has been an intermittent Maker Space. I absolutely love and see the value in providing students with a way to learn information in a more hands on way instead of sitting in the classroom listening to a stagnant lesson.  In my personal experience I feel that students really enjoy the opportunity for a environment like a maker space, where they will experience materials they are unfamiliar with. But a barrier I see to a fully successfully implication is the willingness for classroom teachers to incorporate visits to the Maker Space in their weekly lessons.  In my school there was a full time teacher in charge of the Maker Space. He had Ozobots, Legos, and iPads to make movies but no teachers were regularly bring their classes and the position was vacated. I...

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