Ryan's BEST Day in Education!!!

Teaching technology in a kindergarten – eighth grade school has the potential for everyday to be the BEST or not. Fortunately, the good outweigh the bad. The best day in education for me would have to be one of the days when I serve as a facilitator instead of a lecturer or traditional instructor. 

While I try to make my instructional talks engaging, the students would rather be occupied in some sort of active learning experience where they are learning through observation, testing and exploration. Using Lego Mindstorms robots offers an opportunity for me to facilitate learning and the students to explore.

Using robots in the class requires a certain amount of instruction and the students must have guidelines when working on their own but learning to use the robots through exploration makes for the best day in education. Once the students have a basic understanding of how to program as well as the basic parts of the robot, they can make their best attempts to get the robots to do what they wish.

A day during the 2016 – 2017 school year, I had a seventh-grade class. We were learning the basics of using Lego Mindstorms robots. 

The students had guidelines to direct their learning but the main thing that I wanted the students to do was practice entering the code and explore some simple things that the robot could do. One thing that I like to do whenever possible is give the students other resources to go to if extra help is needed. The Khan Academy website has a great introduction to Lego robots that I use for students who need extra help. Click HERE to check it out. 


The class was loud but under control. The students were using all parts of the room to program and test their robots, and a majority of the students had smiles on their faces and their reflections at the end of the period was a clear indication that learning was happening. I certainly got a workout that day by helping students who struggled a little but more so from many of the requests to “come see this” or “Mr. Evans look at what I got my robot to do. If the engagement and exciting learning environment wasn’t enough, the principle popped in for an unannounced observation. She liked!!! This was the BEST day in education!