Lego, robotics and experiential learning at TNCDSB

By Laura Balanko-Dickson
Staff writer
lbalankodickson@fortfrances.com

A new lego robotics program aims to give intermediate students some hands-on learning to teach them coding, according to Tiffany Goulet, Experiential Learning Lead at the Northwest Catholic District School Board. Goulet said this type of program has a lot to offer to students, and shared that feedback from students involved in the inaugural Lego robotics program suggested they were eager for more of this type of learning.

“We’re going to roll this out into our intermediate division to start with,” said Goulet. “The goal is this year.”

While the board’s program goal is to roll out this program to their intermediate students this year, another goal the board has is to make its students more comfortable with coding.

“The goal is teach kids to code and to be more comfortable with coding,” said Goulet. “We’re using a hands on method, which our kids are really responding to well because they’re showing us that they are hands-on, visual learners. They’ll follow a build in the Lego Spike app. So it’ll build the robot, and then they have to code the robot on the app, and it will accomplish a task… It’s really building on the skill set that they have for coding to date.”

Goulet said the coding gets more complex as the robots students build get more complex.

“It’s block based coding,” said Goulet.

“So the initial build will be more simple, but as you add on more pieces, like light sensors or the color sensors, the coding gets more complex.”

Moreover, Goulet thinks this type of learning has a lot to offer students because it uses something they are already familiar with in a new way.

“When I taught in Kingston in my first job, they had a Lego robotics program. So, I’ve seen this program in action before, and I think it has a lot to offer to kids,” said Goulet. “It allows kids to enter in a way that they’re very, very comfortable with. Most kids have built Lego before. So, we’re adding something additional to something that they’re very comfortable with. They know how to build Lego. They love to experiment with Lego. [Now] we’re adding the coding to make the robot do something purposeful.”

“I’m amazed by it,” she added.

Goulet said she isn’t the only one amazed, adding that the students have also been taken in by the program.

“The feedback has been excellent from the students,” said Goulet. “They’re telling us in our feedback forms that they want more of it. They love the hands-on [aspect,] and being able to code and see what the robot is doing is really appealing to them.”

According to Goulet, a long-term goal of the program is to have students use the kit when they want to and their teachers discretion.

“Long term, our hope is that as we continue to bring this into the classroom and the classroom teachers are comfortable with it,” said Goulet. “Then they’ll be able to use the kit as they want to.”