One of the things I most enjoy about attending conferences, like the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA), is the conversations I get to have with educators and conference attendees that I wouldn’t have anywhere else. In each of these interactions I learn more about the amazing things that educators are doing with VEX to incite a love of learning for their students. From unique implementations to problem-solving on behalf of students, these conversations give us a space to connect and be creative together. Here are a few stories worth sharing about some of the ways that teachers are seeking to bring learning to life with VEX in their classrooms, clubs, and more.

How can I make my math class as exciting as the robotics class next door?

One geometry teacher told me of his dilemma – his classroom is right next door to the VEX robotics class and he can see and hear how excited and engaged students are every day. But when they come into his class, it’s not quite the same. He told me he didn’t know anything about robotics or engineering, but wondered if there was something simple with robots that he could do to help make math more interesting for his students. His message was that “clearly they’re interested in math/STEM, just not in my classroom.”

I came upon this teacher as he was looking at VEX 123, and we looked at some of the math related blocks in VEXcode 123. He saw things like the operator blocks and function blocks and got visibly excited, telling me about how he would love for his students to be able to do things with math concepts that involved a robot. As he was telling me how he could see having kids code the 123 Robot to drive in different shapes to explore polygons and angles, I thought of VEXcode VR. Moving over to that station, I opened the Shape Tracer Playground and his eyes lit up. We were then talking through lesson ideas, that he could immediately take back and try in his next class.

Here are some of the ideas:

• Using the Shape Tracer as a concept review to see if students could apply what they learned in this context. 
• Using this Playground to help students better understand the difference between interior and exterior angles.
• Showing students the Playground to see what ideas they had about how to go about solving it to start a unit and throughout a unit as an application of learning.

How can I introduce competitions in a slow and low stakes way? 

A coding teacher who started a “Girls Who Code” Club at her high school talked about how she wanted to do competitions, but didn’t want to go “all in” right away. She wanted to gradually introduce it so that when her girls got to a big competition they wouldn’t be overwhelmed, and would be confident. She told me how she was starting to use VEXcode VR for small competitions in her club, and wondered how to bridge the gap between these small explorations and all that goes into a VRC competition team.

We talked about the classroom competition format of VEX EXP STEM Labs, and how they were specifically designed to leverage the engagement of a competition in a classroom setting. Looking through the STEM Labs, she saw how some focused on the coding concepts she was teaching in VR, and how those could be a great ‘gateway’ to building a physical robot. She was excited that she could start with coding focused games, solidly in her comfort zone, then work her way up to more engineering focused game play.

Some ideas we talked about were:

• Using the V5 Kit she had in a closet to complete an EXP STEM Lab Unit while she waited for her EXP Kits to arrive.
• Using things like Castle Crasher as a bridge between VR and EXP – her girls could first do a competition in VR, then build on that with the EXP STEM Lab. 
• Stretching out STEM Labs that have more of an engineering focus to give herself and her girls more time to build their comfort and confidence around building.

How can I support students who have never built before to get started building with IQ?

Another teacher told me of how in her classes, many of her students have never built anything before. Their home and previous school experiences weren’t in situations where they had building toys or used a lot of hands-on manipulatives in their learning. She wanted to find a way to raise her students’ confidence around building, and support their spatial reasoning skills, to make things like following build instructions less frustrating and overwhelming for them.

We talked about how VEX GO could be a good bridge for her situation. Looking at the GO Kits together, and playing with the pieces herself, the connection between the two platforms was clear. She said how much easier it would be for her students to get started with color coded pieces, like those in the GO Kits. Together, we looked through the GO Builds, and talked about how doing a series of simpler GO builds could give students an entry point to construction, and the speed with which the builds come together could help build their confidence. Some ideas we talked about were: 

• Starting with just spatial awareness (like symmetry and rotation and VEX GO Discovery Activities) before ever putting pieces together.
• Doing a simple build and activity in one class period, using the VEX GO Activities.
• Giving students the chance to free build with GO to practice taking an idea they can picture in their head and translating it to a tangible object.

These were just a few highlights that stuck out to me from the many, many interactions I had throughout the conference. I found myself inspired by the ways that these teachers sought to meet their students where they were. From adapting their teaching methods to thinking about how to slow down or customize a solution that would set students up for success – each of these teachers had a thoughtful question that brought them over, and were deeply invested in finding a creative solution. It made me wonder how many other unique and creative solutions VEX teachers were bringing to life every day in classrooms and clubs around the world. I’m looking forward to more of these kinds of discussions and meetings at the upcoming VEX Robotics Educators Conference. Join me, and creative, thoughtful, innovative, and inspiring VEX educators from around the world at the conference April 29-May 1, 2024 in Dallas, Texas!