More Leadership Opportunities~ Mrs. Cowell

April 27, 2016

Our student teacher from the high school, Emily, has been taught a great deal about using Pro-Bots as this is all new to her. Students get so excited to think creatively about how they want to demonstrate learning by using the Pro-Bots... especially if they get to teach Emily about it too! 

Here are some photos from our day...

We cannot wait to share even more soon as we are diving into Geometry soon!!

Thanks for reading!

~Mrs. Cowell

Understanding Area & Perimeter ~ Mrs. Foley

This week we had a lot of fun exploring area & perimeter of rectangles! Students were tasked with showing their understanding of these concepts and their calculations by creating their own rectangles and finding their area and perimeter.

Once students mastered the area and perimeter of rectangles they were encouraged to create more intricate polygons comprised of right angles. They could then calculate the perimeters based on their code and also, separate the shapes into rectangles and calculate the area of the entire shape. This was so important for them to see how area can be additive! They did a wonderful job!

Creating Symmetrical Shapes ~ Mrs. Foley

This week students learned about the concept of symmetry and were tasked to show their learning and understanding by creating symmetrical objects with the Pro-Bots!

This was an AWESOME way for students to deepen their thinking and strengthen their understanding because programming the Pro-Bot to create a symmetrical polygon required the understanding that these shapes needed some equal angles and equal sides. 

Triangle Time! ~ Mrs. Foley

This week students learned how to classify triangles by their sides and angles. To demonstrate mastery of this concept we used the Pro-Bots to create different types of triangles. By choosing appropriate angle measure turns and distances for the triangle sides, students could create a variety of different triangles.

We brainstormed on these sheets:

Next, students ran their Pro-Bots to create their triangles. They used the actual experience of programming the Pro-Bot to edit their drafts and create true triangles..... and some other designs they liked!

I was so impressed with their ability to understand the concept of additive angles and the relationships between interior and exterior angles. They continue to impress me more and more every week! :)

Student Leaders

Student Leaders

Today three of my students taught Mrs. Lowerre and several of her students all about the ProBots. This was such an exciting experience as we can continue this next week to spread our knowledge, deepen our own thinking/ learning, and empower students to help others. 

Thank you so much to Carter, Joe, and Kevin. They were AMAZING!!

Empowering Students to Demonstrate Learning

Empowering Students to Demonstrate Learning

Teaching adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators can be daunting and difficult for students to grasp conceptually. This week I challenged students to experiment with the ProBots to see if they could show me that they understand this concept- rather than complete problem after problem on paper. The students dove in, and I have been in awe for two days at what they continue to come up with.
Day 1... Collaboration & Critical Thinking (real-world and interest-based!)

Day 2... Creativity, Application, Perseverance, Communication, more Collaboration & Critical Thinking! 

We have more projects to add next week, so stay tuned!

Angle Types ~ Mrs. Foley

This week we focused on creating acute, obtuse, right, and straight angles with the Pro-Bots. Originally I had designed this lesson to give students a hands-on, creative way to display their knowledge of the angle types. It actually ended up morphing into more of a lesson about how angles are additive and identifying supplementary angle measures. This is what I love about the Pro-Bots! What can start as a straightforward learning target turns into a variety of learning objectives.

Learning Objectives:

• Name and identify the 4 angle types
• Create examples of the 4 angle types using the Pro-Bot
• Recognize that an acute angle turn results in an obtuse angle and vice versa.

They were then able to translate their knowledge into this:

AMAZING WORK THIS WEEK!! :)

Follow that track!

As a fun, educational way to finish off the week Mrs. Cowell's class and our class got together today to show off what we have learned so far. Their challenge was to program their Pro-Bot create a track and then challenge their partner from the other class to figure out their program by observing their track and attempting to run their Pro-Bot on it.

We had a BLAST working with Mrs. Cowell's class this afternoon! This was such a great opportunity to share and practice our learning with each other. It was so valuable to hear conversations about measuring distances and how to determine how many degrees are in a turn. Their learning could not have been more evident. 

We cannot wait to see what next week brings!

Quadrilaterals ~ Mrs. Foley

QUADRILATERALS!

    

Students will be able to:

• Identify the characteristics of the different types of quadrilaterals
• Show they understand the different types of quadrilaterals through drawing them
• Code the Pro-Bot to draw quadrilaterals