CoderDojo Arduino Session
2013-Dec-13, Friday 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chebeLast Saturday I helped mentor the CoderDojos Girls session, and as December is a busy month, I ended up leading the session. I introduced the girls to Arduino. And a ridiculously good time was had by all.
Between hackerspaces, coderdojos, and the proliferation of conferences and workshops in tech I've ended up thinking a lot about methods of teaching. I've only really experienced the one; the kind where a teacher tries to drag a classroom of over thirty students through a bussel of knowledge hoping some will stick (while simultaneously trying to keep everyone well behaved). Sometimes it works really well, but mostly it just works. (For most people, most of the time. To satisfy that same system's expectations.) Even college, with class sizes varying from eight to a couple-hundred, and a relatively hands-off approach, was a shock despite being much the same, only with more hoops to jump through and more exams to pass.
This new wave* involves learning differently, openly, questioningly, collaboratively. People realise they have an interest in something, and then develop it, consume everything they can on the matter, learning through passion. There aren't teachers, just others with more knowledge who are available to answer questions or provide prompts. There are no exams, only whether a project works or not, no feeling of inadequacey, only opportunities to learn more. It's a shift from forcing people to fit into little boxes, to finding the box that fits the person. And seeing it in action is quite exciting.
So I borrowed a bunch of Arduino Unos, breadboards, and jump leads from the hackerspace, grabbed a selection of LEDs, and showed up bright and early for CoderDojo. Following the suggestion from other mentors I forced them into groups of three, gave each group a board, and showed them just enough about how to get one LED blinking. They ran from there, naturally exploring, adding more LEDs, wanting different patterns (and occassionally more hardware that I didn't have). Only asking questions of the mentors when they got stuck. I had meant to only go for an hour, but before I knew it the two hours were up! And everyone was still absorbed in what they were doing.
Most of the mentors were new to Arduinos as well, so all around everyone was learning. It was a very hands-off approach which, for myself at least, made it more interesting (and provided more exercise jumping from group to group as they came up with questions). I was asked where they could be bought, and there were even a bunch of tweets from some of the coders full of excitement. And that's why we volunteer, I guess, the satisfaction of seeing those busy minds getting fed, of being a part of it.
* This ted talk from Sugata Mitra is very inspiring; http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud.html
Between hackerspaces, coderdojos, and the proliferation of conferences and workshops in tech I've ended up thinking a lot about methods of teaching. I've only really experienced the one; the kind where a teacher tries to drag a classroom of over thirty students through a bussel of knowledge hoping some will stick (while simultaneously trying to keep everyone well behaved). Sometimes it works really well, but mostly it just works. (For most people, most of the time. To satisfy that same system's expectations.) Even college, with class sizes varying from eight to a couple-hundred, and a relatively hands-off approach, was a shock despite being much the same, only with more hoops to jump through and more exams to pass.
This new wave* involves learning differently, openly, questioningly, collaboratively. People realise they have an interest in something, and then develop it, consume everything they can on the matter, learning through passion. There aren't teachers, just others with more knowledge who are available to answer questions or provide prompts. There are no exams, only whether a project works or not, no feeling of inadequacey, only opportunities to learn more. It's a shift from forcing people to fit into little boxes, to finding the box that fits the person. And seeing it in action is quite exciting.
Some LEDs on a breadboard
Photo by chebe
So I borrowed a bunch of Arduino Unos, breadboards, and jump leads from the hackerspace, grabbed a selection of LEDs, and showed up bright and early for CoderDojo. Following the suggestion from other mentors I forced them into groups of three, gave each group a board, and showed them just enough about how to get one LED blinking. They ran from there, naturally exploring, adding more LEDs, wanting different patterns (and occassionally more hardware that I didn't have). Only asking questions of the mentors when they got stuck. I had meant to only go for an hour, but before I knew it the two hours were up! And everyone was still absorbed in what they were doing.
Most of the mentors were new to Arduinos as well, so all around everyone was learning. It was a very hands-off approach which, for myself at least, made it more interesting (and provided more exercise jumping from group to group as they came up with questions). I was asked where they could be bought, and there were even a bunch of tweets from some of the coders full of excitement. And that's why we volunteer, I guess, the satisfaction of seeing those busy minds getting fed, of being a part of it.
* This ted talk from Sugata Mitra is very inspiring; http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud.html
