Garcia Center Service Project

     For Saturday November 6, 2021, my teammate and I taught at the Garcia Center. We taught a lesson on recycling to spark the community to want to recycle. The TEKS we used was 4.1B: make informed choices in the use and conservation of natural resources and reusing and recycling of materials such as paper, aluminum, glass, cans, and plastic. We taught them about recycling terms through Quizlet like eco-friendly. We also had a AR game where they could practice sorting things for recycling like plastic and glass. Jasmine created a story for recycling with a hero that encourages recycling. At the end of the lesson, we had the students fill out a Google Form that tested their knowledge. At the end of the form, I had put a link to the Corpus Christi Recycling website about what you can and can't recycle here in Corpus Christi. We even explained that different cities might have different regulations on recycling.

      We did have the students do a scavenger hunt with a movement wheel. We ended up skipping over the wheel and let the students pick up as many recyclable material off the ground as possible. Despite this, my overall experience was great. The information was simple for the students to understand, and they learned something new about recycling. They also appreciate the link about what you can recycle in Corpus Christi because they didn't know about everything you can recycle. I would definitely do this again if I had the chance.

    

One student picking up plastic.

    Our ITSE standards were:

   2c. Choose teaching approaches that help to foster an inclusive computing culture, avoid stereotype threat and equitably engage all students.

3c. Plan collaboratively with other educators to create learning activities that cross disciplines to strengthen student understanding of CT and CS concepts and transfer application of knowledge in new contexts.

4a. Design CT activities where data can be obtained, analyzed, and represented to support problem-solving and learning in other content areas.

4c: Guide students on the importance of diverse perspectives and human-centered design in developing computational artifacts with broad accessibility and usability.

5d. Establish criteria for evaluating CT practices and content learning that use a variety of formative and alternative assessments to enable students to demonstrate their understanding of age-appropriate CS and CT vocabulary, practices, and concepts.  

    Our activity was inclusive to all students and helped to foster an inclusive computing culture. Jasmine and I both worked on the lesson and exchanged ideas. This did contain problem-solving and learning about recycling. We did give a diverse perspective on recycling including what Corpus Christi does for recycling even if it wasn't the same as another city. We did have a rubric that went with the lesson which had the criteria for the students to be able to do.

ICreate lab day with ECDC students

    On October 4th, 2021, my teammate and I taught the 4th graders from the ECDC school about recycling. We collaborated on the use of technology with a 4th grade TEKS. The TEKS we chose was (1b) which is to make informed choices in the use of natural resources and reusing and recycling of materials such as paper, aluminum, glass, cans, and plastic. 

 This is the race that the first group did.

Our Activity

    We had made two recycling trucks with the Lego WeDo 2.0 kits. Our goal was to use them to teach recycling and coding. We opened up the lesson by asking questions to see the knowledge they had about recycling. We then explained how they could code with the trucks, and I gave an example of the code by instructing the truck to move. We then let the students do their own code with the IPads we had. The first  group wanted us to give a code for their race. They also made a code to have the Smarthub change to different colors. The second group coded the trucks to go forwards, backwards, and make noises. The last group wanted to race with speed by setting the trucks to the highest speed possible. One of the students figured out how to do it first before explaining how he managed to do it. 

The students getting ready to code.    

My Experience

    Overall my experience was great from the students. I had the opportunity to teach them, and I also learned from them. I got to see their creativity, and I learned that the speed could be set higher. I haven't worked with a 4th grade class before, so I didn't know what they would do with coding the trucks. It was also interesting to see them find out how to change the code to do something new. I wouldn't have thought that the speed could be manipulated more. I thought it went up to only speed 9, but the students put in a bigger number than that. 

    The ITSE standards we used are:

    3c: Plan collaboratively with other educators to create learning activities that cross disciplines to strengthen student understanding of CT and CS concepts and transfer application of knowledge in new contexts.

4a: Design CT activities where data can be obtained, analyzed and represented to support problem-solving and learning in other content areas.

    I helped to collaborate with Jasmine to create this activity and transfer our knowledge of technology and recycling into new contexts. Our activity was designed with WeDo 2.0, so students could problem-solve with the code and learn with coding. This will be important for when I do teach. I can design activities to support problem-solving and learning, and I can discuss with educators about similar topics as well. 

Jasmine teaching the students about coding.