Robotics in Education: 3 cool ways to incorporate robotics into your curricula

Fact: Robotics is an amazing way to teach our students a number of disciplines. Through learning of robotics, and through participation in different available robotics competitions, teachers can deliver STEM knowledge and help students strengthen their 21st-century skills and abilities.

We know, this sounds amazing but putting it into practice can be extremely challenging for administrators, superintendents, principals, and of course, for teachers. A few years ago, the only available options were expensive -but very useful- hardware kits, that made the world of robotics for education, not as accessible and affordable as we would have liked.

Today, there are a number of possibilities to teach robotics to our students. Today, using robotics as the ultimate tool to teach STEM and STEAM is a real possibility. Today, tools that are affordable, scalable, and engaging are available for schools and after-school programs to take the maximum advantage of them.  In this article, we’ll show you 3 ways to incorporate robotics into your school’s curriculum.

As we said before, there are many options… It goes way beyond programming a robot, or making your real -or virtual- EV3 follow a line or grab something. This is about new ways to innovate within this field, and innovative pathways to deliver useful skills to our students. Actually, teaching robotics differently in the classroom is offering our students a new way of thinking, and an optimized way to solve everyday problems.

See here some of the options we offer, and recommend, to add the fun, engaging factor to your robotics classroom.

Competitions are an amazing instance for students to fall in love with a certain subject. The required research, fast answers, and teamwork needed will make them develop a number of important skills, without even noticing.

In competitions, learning is not only important but is required. They’ll need to apply their knowledge in order to gain more points, and they’ll need to gain more points in order to succeed and be the winners.

There are many robotics competitions out there, WRO, FIRST, FLL, etc… but in this opportunity, and having in mind the “affordable” and “scalable” values, we’d like to recommend you the CRCC: Cyber Robotics Coding Competition.

In CRCC, a competition sponsored by Intelitek, CoderZ, and Oracle, among others, kids get to program their very own virtual robot, while competing against other schools. This a spectacular opportunity to close the gender gap in STEM education, and amazing space for your students to learn at a fast rhythm.

CRCC can offer your school, or district, the opportunity to give your students the chance of actually experiencing the world of robotics. It is in this competition where hands-on learning gets to be in the center, and where students -with only having an internet connection- can feel the adrenaline of classical competitions where, unlike here, the hardware is a must.

The ISCEF foundation has held a number of CRCC competitions around the world, and you can watch some of the students and teachers testimonials right here:

TESTIMONIALS VIDEO FROM CRCC

If you’d like to bring this kind of competitions to your school or district, get in touch with us, and we’ll be more than happy to accompany you throughout the way.

CoderZ is a gamified and online learning environment where students, worldwide, learn STEM, STEAM, and coding while programming their very own virtual robot. The robot they will learn with is a virtual version of the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3, and fully compatible with this physical robot itself (the hardware).

In CoderZ’s gamified missions, students will have to accomplish a series of goals and tasks, and in order to do so, they’ll have to apply their knowledge in areas such as math, engineering, physics, science, and coding. But not only that, since there are numerous ways to solve every single challenge, students will have to strengthen their creativity muscle, their problem-solving skills, their analytical thinking, and their critical-thinking abilities.

Therefore, CoderZ isn’t only the ultimate platform for students to learn STEM while programming a virtual robot, but it is also a proven way to deliver the most required 21st-century skills, within the classroom.

Good news! CoderZ is scalable. Students will start programming with a blockly, colorful, code, based in the one seen on Scratch, to then progress to a Java code. Always respecting the unique, unrepeatable pace of each and each student.

What’s the best part? Any teacher can teach with CoderZ. CoderZ has written curriculum in several languages that will help educators to decide how to implement it in their STEM classes, or in their robotics programs.

Yes, you are right. A “Maker Space” isn’t necessarily related to robots. But, it is a phenomenal way for your students to start practicing something that, especially in robotics for education, is fundamental: hands-on learning.

When students can actually experience their learning process through something they are creating themselves, class content becomes more relevant, interesting, and engaging. As we’ve said many times, we are strong believers in Vygotsky’s theory that says that education is actually a process of social interaction.

Well, allowing your students to express themselves through their projects, and to work in a PBL methodology can only provide your students with even more tools to succeed in the near future.

If you want to see how to create a STEAM-based Makerspace in your classroom, take a look at this article we wrote and published a few months ago.

So, why should you wait even longer? You can start today bringing robotics and cyber robotics to all your students. Register now and get a 14-day free trial of CoderZ, and start experiencing how does it feel to teach with this unique, gamified and friendly tool.

You’ll see how your students will interact with the platform, and how soon they’ll become robot programmers. Would you like us to give you a short tip? Let yourself be surprised, and may the code be with you.