STARKVILLE — After third-grader Grace Campbell finished coding a series of actions on her iPad, she stared at the little blue robot on the floor in front of her. Nothing happened.
“This is my first time doing something like this,” she said. “It’s very difficult to try to program it. If you don’t program it to do something, it won’t do it.”
After a few more rounds of coding and waiting, the robot backed up, rotated, and made frantic noises, just as Campbell had programmed it to do. Solving problems can be difficult, she said, but that’s what she loves about the challenge.
“I like it when I find something I can’t do,” Campbell told the Dispatch.
Campbell attended a beginner coding and robotics enrichment camp this week during the Starkville-Oktibbeha Unified School District’s fall recess, which ended Friday.
The district has two recess periods each year that allow students to attend an additional day of school in addition to regular instruction.
Students can participate in either enrichment camps, where students explore new areas and interests, or accelerated learning, where students receive extra help with reading and math.
Parents can enroll their students in one of 13 enrichment camps with themes ranging from dinosaurs and soil to ocean exploration and advanced composite engineering. Students spend the week learning a new lesson on the subject each day, followed by hands-on activities and field trips to solidify their learning.
Intersession coordinator and program manager Maulisa Blackwell said the most impactful thing for students who attend enrichment camps is the exposure to new careers.
“If you look at pictures of little kids, they’re digging in the sand, but what they’re learning is archaeology. They’re playing in the water here, but what they’re learning is… It means someone is responsible for treating the water,” Blackwell said. “So all the activities look like fun little crafts at an entry level, but they’re all learning about something they may not have known was a career before.”
The survey is part of a district-wide effort to give students early career options and a better idea of how they want to plan their high school careers. The goal is for career exploration to eventually transition into workforce development, she said.
“What we are trying to do in our district is create strategic career exploration opportunities at every level throughout the K-12 experience, from beginning to end, and intercession is one of them.” she said. “Exploring a career through multiple layers allows kids to focus on what they are and aren’t interested in.”
Communications Director Haley Montgomery said teachers working between classes will also have a chance to join in the fun.
haley montgomery
“It gives them an opportunity to explore what interests them and expand their creativity,” she said. “They can come up with a topic that they find interesting and want to teach, and combine it with activities, new resources, and a variety of other things.”
Isabel McLemore, who typically teaches fourth grade at Henderson Ward Stewart Elementary School, came up with the idea for a beginner coding and robotics camp after attending a computer science workshop through the Mississippi Children’s Museum. I proposed.
“I knew very little…but I learned enough to teach children and pass on that passion and love to them,” she said. “Within 11 minutes, 20 students signed up (for the camp) and it was sold out.”
After spending a week teaching students how to identify, build and code robots, she said the biggest takeaway was seeing them fall in love with the subject. Even if students aren’t interested in a future career in robotics, they’re still developing problem-solving skills, she says.
“Some of them didn’t know anything about this, but now they know enough to help their peers if their regular classroom teacher (introduces the robot). “There will be,” she said.
Accelerate learning
Outside of enrichment camps, students who need special help in developing their math and reading skills receive instruction from Mississippi State University’s psychology graduate students.
Montgomery said teachers and administrators will be able to help identify SOCSD students who may need additional support throughout the beginning of the school year. Students will then be invited to participate in an accelerated learning program, which is optional, she said.
“Students receive one-on-one support from teachers that they may not receive in the regular classroom, as well as small groups and support that specifically focuses on the skills they need,” Montgomery said.
Since recess instruction is optional for teachers in the district, Blackwell said the graduate students are helping fill in areas where more instructors are needed. Graduate students gain additional experience, while SOCSD students receive more intensive instruction, she said.
“The impact is that it’s now personalized, real-time, small group instruction,” she said. “We are limiting class sizes to smaller than normal grades, so groups of 10 to 15 students will be in class with one (graduate student).”
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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