In a time when teenagers hail from a world of smart phones, 3D gaming and social networking, it is any educator’s greatest challenge to make lessons as interesting and attention-grabbing as possible.
Most old chalk-and-talk notions of schooling are defunct and the pivotal point in the learning process clearly needs to be the motivation of students to play an active part in lessons. Memory-based theoretical explanations need to be complemented with real-world applications in order to motivate learning.
This explains why, especially when considering the pressure to cover syllabi and address mixed ability classes, educators are looking at new ways to make the learning process a student-centered, hands-on experience based on cause-and-effect principles.
Over the past two years, many educators in state schools have welcomed the introduction of a range of products made by Lego Education, part of the Lego Group, which specifically focus on the education sector and which have been making teaching and learning interesting and engaging.
Lego Education We Do and Lego Education Mindstorms NXT kits are two such products. The latter has been implemented into our classrooms with a mixture of enthusiasm and, dare I say, relief. Currently, local state schools are also introducing Lego Education We Do, the simpler of the two robotics sets, among lower ages and streams including Form 1 and 2 students.
Starting this scholastic year, the Lego Education Mindstorms NXT robotics sets now form part of the school curriculum for Form 3 students who are using them for early problem-solving and algorithm construction in computing classes in all state schools.
Students are being guided to eventually build their own robotic project to solve a problem of their own definition. This project carries 15 per cent of the annual mark allocated to coursework. The plan is to also use the versatile robotics features afforded by Lego Education NXTs to introduce and help develop programming knowledge in Java through the LeJOS firmware, which provides a Java programming environment for NXTs for Form 4 and 5 students.
Another key advantage of the Lego Education robotics kits is that they lend themselves to educational activities for a much wider range of subjects covering science, technology, engineering and maths, among others.
They are also excellent teaching tools and motivators, perfectly suited for different ages, aptitudes and mixed ability classes, where well-structured activities can lead each student to achieve goals at his or her own pace and level while solving the same given problems on their individual NXT robots.
In this way, all students succeed to the best of their abilities and feel equally involved in the lessons, even though their level of academic attainment may differ greatly.
The pedagogical value of Lego Education NXT-centered activities lies greatly in their ability to motivate and inspire students while providing more space to employ and develop analytical and thinking skills. They allow young students to use Lego Education bricks, computerised blocks, sensors and motors and data-logging facilities to build real robotic machines that can be brought to life through software.
The programming interface is quite intuitive, allowing children to develop programs by using self-explanatory drag-and-drop programming ‘blocks’ and then download these programs to the robotic device in order to make it carry out a task.
Teacher Marthese Borda notes that their intuitive software allows teachers to spark an interest in simple programming and robotics even among the very young.
“I started using the Lego Education We Do set with foundation classes during ICT lessons so that students who are traditionally referred to as low achievers would start to get some hands-on experience in the foundations of programming,” she says.
“Through We Do-related activities, the students were encouraged to think about how they would go about building a model which would produce the actions needed in order to solve the given problem. Later, the students went on to programme the models they had built and they found the icon-based interface very user-friendly.
“One thing which surprised me during these lessons was the students’ ability to think – something we sometimes underestimate,”she says.
Computing teacher Robert Spiteri highlights the intuitive nature of ‘NXT-G’ which is the programming software of Lego Education Mindstorms NXT: “The programming interface is very easy to use and basic knowledge of the drag and drop technique is all that is needed to start programming the NXT robots.”
Spiteri adds that the NXT robots clearly demonstrate how visual and hands-on experimentation of ‘cause and effect’ applications can help students explore basics programming concepts.
“Once students are already familiar with the flowchart concepts, programming NXTs will help them practice problem-solving in a much more interesting way, since they are actually seeing their program come to life through robotics. In this way, problem solving does not remain limited to designing a traditional flowchart on paper and therefore mistakes are more easily identified and fixed since they happen visually.”
Although Lego Education Mindstorms NXT and We DO kits and activities have the potential to empower students in becoming autonomous learners, computing teacher Aaron Tanti states that such empowerment is not likely to take place automatically.
“Unless similar learning activities are introduced in earlier syllabuses, their full potential may be hindered. The NXT sets are undoubtedly an excellent re-source; unfortunately, our students are often not sufficiently pre-trained in the skills they seek to develop.”
The fruitful employment of such teaching tools needs to complement a rethinking of our methodologies from the playpen upwards. After all, it can never be too early to start a child thinking.
The Education Directorates are organising the Embed exhibition in the Sacra Infermeria Hall at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, Valletta, from Thursday until May 17.
It will consist of a number of hands-on workshops using ICT products such as robotics, software and other technological equipment, including the Lego Education NXT Robotics sets.
The activity will be open to the public during the weekend from 10 a.m. till 4 p.m. in order to give families the opportunity to visit.
For more information, visit www.edukamalta.com.
Ms Galea is head of the computing department at the Directorate for Quality and Standards in Education’s Department of Curriculum Management and eLearning.
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