Super Arduino Pet
21st Century Classroom
Overview
This lesson uses a project-based learning approach, with students creating a 'Super Arduino Pet’. The lesson follows an iterative design process involving stages of design, coding, building, testing, and reflection.
The educational objectives aim to enhance students' understanding of Arduino components, encourage creativity in design, and nurture problem-solving skills through coding and iteration.
Teaching strategies encompass direct instruction, guided practice, and independent exploration. Students are introduced to Arduino and its components, guided through basic coding tasks, and independently designed and built their pet, receiving formative feedback along the way. The formative feedback form, grounded in cognitive load theory, prompts students to reflect on their learning effectiveness, feelings, and outcomes. This innovative teaching method promotes active learning, critical thinking, and self-reflection, providing students with vital 21st-century skills.
The speaker will present the completed 'Super Arduino Pets’, demonstrating Arduino components and their creativity in design. The speaker will also share their challenges during the building process and how they used problem-solving skills to overcome them. Furthermore, the speaker will share the formative feedback forms used throughout the lesson, providing insight into how students self-reflect and manage their learning process. These deliverables will display students' hard-earned skills and creativity and provide a comprehensive view of this unique, differentiated, and effective approach to teaching.
Participants of this open lesson will understand:
1. innovative pedagogies understanding: Participants will learn about project-based learning, iterative design, and formative self-evaluation, and their applications to enhance classroom learning;
2. Arduino in educational practice: Participants will learn to apply Arduino and its components in a project, using creativity in design and problem-solving in coding to create a ‘Super Arduino Pet’; and
3. differentiated instruction strategies: Participants will see how the lesson addresses various learning needs, enabling students to work independently. They will learn strategies for formative feedback and peer learning in a differentiated environment.
