DIGITALUSING ROBOTICS IN THE CLASSROOM TO DEVELOP SKILLS NEEDED IN THE 21ST CENTURY WORKPLACE AND TO PROMOTE ENGINEERING HABITS OF MIND
1 Royal Academy of Engineering (UNITED KINGDOM)
2 Ulster University (UNITED KINGDOM)
2 Ulster University (UNITED KINGDOM)
About this paper:
Appears in: ICERI2019 Proceedings
Publication year: 2019
Pages: 5755-5760
ISBN: 978-84-09-14755-7
ISSN: 2340-1095
doi: 10.21125/iceri.2019.1391
Publication year: 2019
Pages: 5755-5760
ISBN: 978-84-09-14755-7
ISSN: 2340-1095
doi: 10.21125/iceri.2019.1391
Conference name: 12th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation
Dates: 11-13 November, 2019
Location: Seville, Spain
Dates: 11-13 November, 2019
Location: Seville, Spain
Abstract:
The VEX Robotics' Challenge has, since its inception, been supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering and Ulster University. The fifth programme and competition event was celebrated in June 2019. It was attended by 84 pupils and teachers from eight secondary schools from across Northern Ireland, These schools included state controlled secondary, state maintained secondary (CCMS), state controlled grammar, co-educational, single gender and special needs education.In addition to introducing Key Stage 3 pupils to building, operating, maintaining and modifying their robots, the programme also requires them to research the applications of robotics and pathways into careers in robotics.
Newly introduced objectives of the programme encourage and enable pupils to develop skills that are desired by employers of their workforce - the "soft" skills of working in a team, communication, creative thinking, decision making, time management, flexibility, problem solving and conflict resolution. The Royal Academy of Engineering is additionally supporting the teachers supervising the students to promote Engineering Habits of Mind (EHoM) - to take a pedagogical approach that cultivates, in addition to the soft skills, systems thinking, improving and adapting, visualising, problem finding and creative problem solving i.e. to "think like an engineer". The EHoM approach adopted will be disseminated in detail during the session and the ingredients that make it a success will be shared.
The session will additionally share new endeavours to demonstrate how the programme is encouraging the development of these transferrable skills via robotics in to other areas of the curriculum - demonstrable by capability successes within key areas of study, both within and beyond the STEM subjects.
Evaluation data which captures the impact is regularly sought and obtained using mixed methods including questionnaires, interviews and observations of and by pupils and supervising teachers before, during and after the robotics' programme. The key findings and results will be disseminated during the presentation.