Work in progress - collaborative outreach to “atrisk” middle school students using LEGO robotics
Dana Pomykal Franz, Bill B. Elmore · 2009
Through an ongoing collaboration among Mississippi State's Swalm School of Chemical Engineering, the College of Education and Fifth Street Middle School in Westpoint, Mississippi, pre-service mathematics teachers and "at-risk" middle school students come together to focus on learning STEM concepts in an innovative way using LEGO robotics. A key feature of this project is the highly visual approach to teaching and studying STEM concepts. The current phase of the project is directed toward "at risk" middle school students-students whose performance on assessments indicates a strong likelihood of their failure or discontinuance from school. Pre-service teachers participate in completing lesson planning and execution coupled with service-learning by delivering the lessons to middle school students. The collaboration between the university and K-12 faculty members AND across disciplinary boundaries (i.e. engineering and education) provides a unique opportunity to bring innovative approaches to the K-12 classroom.