Robots are Back in Class at Catholic Elementary Schools

By Mark Jahne

When Catholic school students returned to school this fall, they were reunited with some high-tech pals: Dash and Dot as well as Code-a-Pillar.

These tech toys are actually robots that have been programmed for action by the kids. It’s all part of a robotics and coding initiative that has been in progress for the past three years at 30 out of 37 Catholic elementary schools. Every student in those schools has been exposed to this program.

Laura McCaffrey, director of school support and academic services for the Archdiocese of Hartford Office of Education, Evangelization and Catechesis, has been conducting training workshops on this topic area for teachers. Her ongoing training helps the teachers coach their students.

At Corpus Christi School in Wethersfield, for example, she has taught numerous sessions, and the students are already learning skills in robotics. Students there are also taking advantage of a new STEM, for science, technology, engineering and mathematics room.

Students from pre-kindergarten through grade four are already working with Code-a-Pillar from Fisher Price. Teacher Diane Moreau-Elmer uses this to introduce sequencing, which helps the children understand geometry and spatial awareness.

IT coordinator Amy McKearney reports that the school is integrating more computer science-driven activities into the curriculum. Both students and faculty have taken computer coding courses by Code.org, a national nonprofit that provides curriculum in computer science for kindergarten through grades 12. There was 100 percent participation of all grades during the Hour of Code campaign in December at Corpus Christi.

Dot and Dash robots are utilized for the lower grades. Middle school pupils will be programming five new LEGO Mindstorms robotics kits.

McKearney regularly holds Technology Tuesday programs for both students and faculty.

“When I do Technology Tuesday I typically break it out to be grade specific. The school has been super supportive in implementing the programs,” McKearney said.

McCaffrey estimates that she has done 45 workshops throughout the archdiocese since August 2018. She is a member of the Connecticut Digital Advisory Council and recently presented a national webinar on behalf of that organization.

She is proud of the technology being taught in schools throughout the archdiocese.

“We are definitely ahead of most of the public school districts” in the area of coding and robotics, she explained.

Corpus Christi is one of the most technologically advanced of these Catholic schools. That is due in large part, McCaffrey said, to the efforts of McKearney and the utility of the new STEM room, where all devices are wireless and nothing is plugged in.

“They’re a double-graded school (elementary and middle) and they have an IT coordinator. That helps,” McCaffrey said. “She’s doing a really great job here.”

“This is my third year here,” McKearney said. “When I started we had rows of desks with 30 computers but you couldn’t react with the students very well.”

Older computers are being shipped off to classrooms elsewhere in the building. The STEM center is equipped with robots, Chromebooks, Kindle pads and headphones.

Another plus is the enthusiasm of a generation of students for whom technology is nothing new, even at the youngest ages. That makes them comfortable with learning new skills and they are not afraid to make mistakes and learn from them.

“They love it. This is part of their lives,” she said.

Getting Comfortable
But the teachers need to learn it, too, if they are to answer questions and facilitate learning. So, one afternoon session last winter began with students operating the Dash robots in a variety of ways. Then the teachers took over when the youngsters left the room.

Kindles are used to do the coding and control the robots. Some of the robots speak. Others play the xylophone or launch small plastic balls. One teacher had fun flipping balls at the feet of a colleague, who was standing several feet away.

“We want them [teachers] to be comfortable with it,” McKearney said.

McCaffrey said she is always looking for affordable ways to bring technology into the schools. The Dot and Dash robots are not expensive, less than $150 apiece. She does her best to provide equipment while also controlling costs.

“I like it because I like robotics,” smiling fourth-grader Lilia Cole said. “It’s really cool. You can program them. There are so many choices.”

She added that another benefit is that she is having fun while learning.

“This is my favorite thing in school. I’m building a LEGO robot with a fifth-grader,” she added.

Lilia is one of many students who belong to the after-school Robot Club that runs for five weeks.

Another big fan of the program is third-grader Vince Torneo. “You can launch balls. You can make them talk,” he said.

Vince agreed with Lilia that having fun while learning is a win-win situation for everyone. That includes Meg Brodeur, who teaches second grade.

“We come up here for the robots specifically or the STEM center generally,” she said while watching the students enjoy after-school time with the Dash robots. “They love coming up here.”

There is also a cross-curricular connection because they are reading about robots in their classroom. Brodeur said her students are naturally intuitive because of their fondness for, and familiarity with, other forms of technology.

“They love it. It brings the learning alive. They love to do things like coding. They don’t skip steps. They know what they want to do,” she said. “There’s a creative component to it as well.”

McCaffrey added, “Coding also helps with computational thinking.”

Coding and robotics require certain specific steps, so the students are also learning the importance of paying attention to details. McKearney said that when she takes Dash and Dot into the classrooms, she likes to pair students up with each set of robots and tablets.

Many Options
Corpus Christi is not the only school benefitting from this curriculum, as McCaffrey notes in her blog.

Second-grade teacher Sara Frampton at St. Mary School in Milford brings coding and robotics into her classroom with iPads and an app used to program Dot and Dash robots from the Wonder Company.

Students work in cooperative groups to develop critical problem-solving skills. They program Dash to create a shape on the floor and when it is time to learn measurements, they program it to move a particular distance and calculate that distance.

Gina Raymond, the middle school math teacher at St. Mary School in Simsbury, has integrated Swift Playground coding into her classes. This is an app offering a series of puzzles that students solve while learning programming basics such as functions, loops, conditional code and logical operators.

They proceed through a series of challenging and complex problems as they maneuver their avatar through a fun world on their iPad. Each challenge is presented with instructions employing real-world tangible scenarios to which the students can relate.

The end result is middle school math classes are infused not just with mathematical concepts but also with the application of those concepts through coding and engineering via whole group simulations.

Technology Coordinator Christina Carmon at St. Gabriel School in Windsor assists students in kindergarten through grade eight with coding. The school also used Code.org as an instructional tool to bring coding to students. Students are assigned a course that is developmentally appropriate for them.

The youngest students use the Pre-Reader Express. Those at the elementary school level are enrolled in Computer Science Fundamentals, which teaches computational thinking, problem solving, programming concepts and digital citizenship.

Computer Science Discoveries is an introductory course for the middle-school level that that empowers students to engage with computer science as a medium for creativity, problem solving and fun.