Ever noticed how when kids play video games, they are never discouraged by their failures? If they don’t complete the level or beat the boss, they rarely give up. In fact, they learn from their mistakes and are more determined to succeed the next time.
This is exactly the type of growth mindset we want to develop in our students in the classroom. So what better way to teach them than to use technology?
We have been watching the Class Dojo Big Ideas series which teaches kids about growing your brain and developing a growth mindset. My class really enjoy these and they promote great discussion points.
This is exactly the type of growth mindset we want to develop in our students in the classroom. So what better way to teach them than to use technology?
We have been watching the Class Dojo Big Ideas series which teaches kids about growing your brain and developing a growth mindset. My class really enjoy these and they promote great discussion points.
We then put this into practice by practicing our coding skills, namely using Bee Bots and the Scratch Jnr app. To succeed in both of these, failure and learning from these mistakes is almost mandatory! For the Bee Bots, I placed some tricky paths on the floor for the Bee Bots to navigate. Working in teams of 2 or 3, the students had to problem solve to program the correct path.
Scratch Jnr is a great app for introducing programming to kids. By choosing programming blocks, students can make characters move, jump dance and sing. My class love it!
It was so pleasing to see the cooperation and collaboration in completing the task, and the positive talk that the students used when things didn’t quite work as they had planned.
It was so pleasing to see the cooperation and collaboration in completing the task, and the positive talk that the students used when things didn’t quite work as they had planned.
My favourite moment was when one student, who had initially found it tricky to find partners to work with, came up and said to me, “Guess what? We all won!” when they had successfully navigated their path. One of those great teacher moments!
Just another reason to include more technology and coding activities in the classroom!