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Hello, and welcome back to the VEX Classroom. My name is Aimee, and in this video, we're going to be talking about Making VEXcode VR an Active Learning Experience for your students. We all know that VEXcode VR is a really fun, minds-on engaging way to teach kids computer science, but we also know that it's important for students to get up and moving, to have embodied learning experiences that help them develop neural pathways, and we need to get them off the screen sometimes.

So in this video, we're going to explore a lot of different ideas for doing that, when students are planning projects, when students are practicing various concepts that they need to create great projects in VEXcode VR, and when they're reflecting on their learning and extending their learning.

Let's first talk about planning projects. We want our students to engage in a deliberate planning process when they're getting ready to code, right? We don't want them jumping in and just dragging blocks out, testing them to see what happens. We want them to plan first. You can do this in a fun way with students by pairing them up, having one student write the pseudo code or the behaviors that they want to see the robot do, and have the other student act them out. They can use this as a way to see if the robot is going to do what they think it's going to do. That would be a fun way to do it, and they can switch roles so that they both get a turn doing both roles.

Then you could also take that and use a handout. We created one where they can then write down their pseudo code and then choose the block that they want to go with it before they jump into actually coding in VR. I'll show you that right now. Here's a quick example of how you might create a pseudo code planning sheet. It's very straightforward, you've got the pseudo code on one side and then the block that it goes with on the other. Students can sit down off the screen, use this planning sheet, and plan out what they want to do, and then go actually code it in VEXcode VR.

Another thing that you might do is create some simulated versions of the playgrounds that you're using in VEXcode VR in your classroom. For example, if you were using the wall maze playground, you might tape out the wall maze on the floor of your classroom, or if you need something with a little less space, use a table and then create a little cardboard robot or a printout of the robot and have students use those to plan out their movements ahead of time. You could even pair that up with a planning sheet like the one that I just showed you to get kids planning in a hands-on and minds-on way before they're on the actual VEXcode VR and coding.

I was thinking about this and I was thinking about how I knew a teacher who would teach the coordinate grid by making a shower curtain version of it. She had it written out on a shower curtain so students could stand up, walk up to it, and actually try to find the coordinates they were looking for. Maybe you were using the number grid playground, you could create something like that on a big shower curtain and have students plan with that before they use VEXcode VR. There are multiple different ways that you could do this and make it an off-screen sort of hands-on activity when they're planning.

All right, so how about practicing different concepts that you might need when you're coding in VEXcode VR? One thing I used to love, love, love to do when I was teaching is to create games and adapt games to fit different things that we were working on in class. There are so many ways you could do this with VR that get kids up and moving and having a good time, but also practicing these things. I was thinking about different traditional games that you could adapt.

Thank you for joining us in this exploration of making VEXcode VR an active learning experience. We hope these ideas inspire you to create engaging and dynamic learning environments for your students.

Thank you for watching, and happy coding!

For example, if you are practicing movement blocks, you could do Simon says with movement blocks. So Simon says, "Turn right for 90 degrees." Simon says, "Turn left for 45 degrees." Different commands like that can get kids acting out these things before they go and code with them.

You could also teach the eye sensor by adapting a traditional red light, green light game. In this way, they would be the robot and have an eye sensor activated. You would pick three different movements for three different colors. For example, red would be stop, green would be go, and blue could be turn around. The leader could hold up objects of different colors, so if the eye sensor detects red, then stop; if it detects green, go forward; if it detects blue, turn around. You wouldn't even have to say anything, just hold up the color, and the students could be the robot acting it out. This would be a fun adaptation of an easy classroom game that takes no time to plan and would be a lot of fun for the students.

Another idea is creating a tag game. I was thinking about how much my kids love to play various versions of freeze tag. You could do a bumper sensor freeze tag where students pretend to be the robot and put out their hand to be the bumper sensor. If tagged, it's like a conditional statement: if you're tagged by pressing the bumper sensor, then you have to freeze. It's really simple but a super fun and effective way of practicing for kids of pretty much any age.

You could also create some simple warmup activities when you're getting ready to work on a specific concept in your classroom. The turn to heading and turn to rotation blocks can be confusing. You could have a quick activity at the beginning where students get up out of their seats and practice how they would move if they were the robot and had to turn to a certain heading or rotation. Easy peasy, but they're out of their seats and practicing that movement before they have to code it.

Another quick, easy classroom game could be a traditional matching game. I thought of using a quick project where one card has the project on it and the other card shows what the robot would do if that project were run. You could play a regular old match game, trying to match up the project with its outcome. This could be done with any number of different concepts you are trying to practice in the classroom.

All right. We've talked a little bit about planning projects and practicing different concepts, and there are probably a thousand other ways you could do that. If you think of them, I hope you will post them in the community and share them.

Let's talk a little bit about how you might reflect and extend your knowledge in an active way when you're doing VEXcode VR. One thing you might do is create a journal for students to use throughout the time they're working on VEXcode VR. We created some ideas here, just a little sample of what you might do. You could create journal pages where students fill out their name, the project goal, and include all the different playgrounds simply by taking a screenshot into these journal pages. Students can write notes about the project, what they did, how many iterations they did, or some of the problems they had and how they solved them.

You could provide students with a specific journal prompt if you wanted them to reflect on something specific, and they could copy it down here and then write about it here. So you could easily make something like this to use in your classroom that students would probably really enjoy using.

Another thing you could do is have students download Art Canvas Plus activities. I mean, Art Canvas Plus PDF, so like once they've made something using the Art Canvas Plus playground, they can download it, add that to their journal, and write about it and reflect on it, which would be a really fun addition to their journal. You could also have students share these things with each other and provide feedback to one another about their projects, positive feedback, of course. So that would be another thing you could do with their journal.

You could also have students create journal pages that focus on specific habits of mind that you might be studying. If you're working, for example, on thinking flexibly, you could have students respond to specific prompts about how they thought flexibly using VEXcode VR, when they were coding in VEXcode VR, or ways that they showed persistence. That would be a great addition to any kind of journal that they were keeping over the course of time.

Another thing you could do is put similar things on a bulletin board. You could document students' growth over time by having them print out the PDFs of their projects from the very beginning, when they first begin coding with VEXcode VR, and have them show the progression of growth and learning over time so they can have all their projects documented on the wall. And then we could look at them and see how much they've learned over the course of their instruction. So that would be really great.

Another idea that we had was the use of a choice board, especially for extending student learning or having students reflect. You could create a choice board that students could use when they're done coding or even as a center at another time of day. And we do have a quick example of how you might do that here. So here's a quick choice board that you might make. We have a little segment here about finding bugs and creating a bug journal. So students can keep track of the bugs that they found in their projects and how they solve them. It really puts a positive spin on debugging and is fun for them, different activities, walking something out, so planning your project that way, finding alternate ways of solving a challenge, creating a journal of iterations, finding ways to add to your project by using the VR pen or adding a feature. So just anything that you can think of, you can add to a choice board that will have students furthering their learning, or possibly practicing again, something, a little bit of reteaching could also be done through one of these choice boards. So that would be something you could do.

You could also look for some cross-curricular connections there. You could have students write stories about specific VEXcode VR playgrounds. Of course, Castle Crasher comes to mind or Coral Reef Cleanups, so there's a lot of writing that you could do there. You could also turn some of the playgrounds into active PE games. So like the disc mover challenge would be an awesome thing that you could do on a playground. So just different ways of connecting to VEXcode VR and getting kids excited about it, getting them off the screen, up and learning, but also still engaging with the content and learning computer science at the same time.

I hope that some of these ideas will get you excited about doing this kind of thing in your own classroom and that you will take them and adapt them and make them your own.

Please share any of these ideas in PD Plus in the community with us, if you can.

I will post a "Make a PD Plus post" about all these ideas, and I will put a link to it below this video so you can check them out.

Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you here again in the VEX Classroom really soon.

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