Can Robotics Teach Problem Solving to Students?

Critical thinking and problem-solving skills are essential to success at university and in later life. However, the traditional classroom model has done a poor job of imparting these skills to students. The way children have learned in the classroom for generations has focused on lectures and worksheets. Past generations would depend on group sports, clubs and teenage jobs to impart these vital skills onto students.

However, new ideas suggest that robotics may hold the key to teaching problem-solving skills to students. Using robots to teach real-world skills may be a strange concept, but is it worth exploring? We think so and here’s why. 

Key trends in K12 robotics education

Robotics education is becoming increasingly commonplace in schools. This is largely due to the fact that students in K12 schools will graduate into a workforce that’s rife with technology, in an era where robots will become widely used in our everyday lives.

Even if these kids choose a career other than coding or robotics, learning robotics teaches them many important skills such as analytical thinking, programming, teamwork, collaborative thinking, innovation and more. It can be easily incorporated into STEAM education, which is becoming more popular in schools worldwide.

Students Who Engineer Their Way to Success

Engineering teaches critical thinking skills. These skills are in high demand not only in engineering, but also in other professions. The thinking skills of engineers include establishing replicable processes for presenting ideas, the ability to collect and analyze data, and the confidence in presenting solutions to problems.

Those skills aren’t just for engineers,. Everyone needs the critical thinking skills of engineers. These four high schools understand the implications for teaching engineering skills to all their students.

3 strategies to keep students engaged in STEM

STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) is more than just an acronym or a collection of letters. Rather, it is an instructional movement that embodies cross-curricular concepts from four fundamental disciplines, as well as a research-based strategy that addresses the future needs of a technology-driven work force and sustaining a global economy. The importance of STEM is further validated by its prominence in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

One of the most effective instructional approaches toward the implementation of STEM in grade-level courses is through project-based learning (PBL). In this approach, instruction occurs through student-centered investigations focused on a specific topic driven by a set of objectives, culminating in a broadly-defined product or technique. Projects foster an environment of discussion, creativity, problem-solving, inquiry, modeling, and testing, and are applicable to students in all grade levels and subjects, but particularly within the STEM arena.

How EdTech Will Change School Culture

For more than 100 years, we’ve relied on the factory model for providing education. Born of the industrial age, when efficient systems mattered most in producing a product, the factory model mimicked assembly-line work. 

Schools built large classrooms and filled them with multiple rows of students. Teachers delivered one-size-fits-all instruction, and process was replicated in room after room, hall after hall, and school after school.

Naming the education system after industrialism was more of a metaphor than anything else, but one thing became apparent. Industrialism had served its purpose. Continuing to model an education system after an era that had passed was hurting instruction, not helping it. In education, we deal with people, not parts.

CHOP's new robot sings, dances and even recognizes patients' faces

Philadelphia hospital debuts new robot designed to engage, educate young patients

JOHN KOPP/PHILLYVOICE Saaliha, a 7-year-old patient at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, greets NAO, the hospital's new interactive robot.

6 Ways We Kill Students’ Motivation

“What can we do to motivate our students who need it the most?” my principal recently asked. 

As a teacher, I, of course, had many thoughts. But those thoughts are just that: mine. So I asked my principal a simple question: Why don’t we ask the students?

So we did.

Kids Learn Better When Playing with Robots

For many students, math and science have always been boring subjects, too bogged down with technical details to ever be fun or exciting. Teachers have long tried a variety of strategies to get students excited about STEM. It turns out, one of the best ways to get kids pumped about STEM is through the use of robots.

Boosting Your Child's STEM Skills With Robotics

"STEM" is an important educational topic sweeping through homes and schools across the world.  STEM is an acronym representing the huge push to teach and involve students in science, technology, engineering, and math. Due to struggling test scores and low enthusiasm in many schools, both parents and teachers are striving to find new and better ways to create greater interest in these critical learning topics.

These classroom subjects give our children the keys to a booming future in one of these science-driven fields. Although there are many ways to help encourage a STEM education, robotics education programs are allowing children as young as 6 to learn valuable problem-solving STEM skills. 

Goooal! These are the RoboCup Humanoid League Winners!

Robotics teams and experts competed on Sydney for the RoboCup 2019, aiming to claim the World Champion title.

Two local universities came out with first place honours, University of Sydney (USYD) and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), in the Soccer Simulation 2D League and the Social Robot Standard Platform League, respectively.