Name: Supporting Student Sense Making with Data Collection and the BBC micro:bit (in-person)
Start: 2022-06-03T10:10:00-0600
End: 2022-06-03T12:20:00-0600

Rock CS is a professional development event designed by Adams 12 Five Star Schools and St. Vrain Valley School District.

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Supporting Student Sense Making with Data Collection and the BBC micro:bit (in-person)

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CSTA identifies Perception, Representation and Reasoning as core components in an AI learning progression for K-12 students. This session focuses on how to engage your students with these concepts through a hands-on learning experience where they program and wire a physical computing system to collect and analyze data collected by a BBC micro:Bit and Sparkfun’s gator:bit sensor system.

The session is designed to engage teachers of all experience levels with the micro:bit system; novices will receive scaffolds for supporting their entry while experienced users will have ample opportunities for extensions and applications. After working with fellow teachers on guided activities on wiring and programming a physical computing system, participants will reflect on pedagogical applications and discuss curricular integration strategies. The tools used in the workshop are appropriate for middle school and high school students, with alligator clip connectors for wiring and block-based, Javascript, or Python programming in MakeCode.

Enhance Student Learning
During the workshop, teachers develop skills for collecting sensor data with the BBC micro:bit, enabling instructors to enrich existing curriculum with data collection and exploration. In addition to building skills relating to the physical computing system, teachers will reflect on how they can scaffold the lessons to engage students with computational thinking, debugging, and connecting data collection to the Big Ideas in Artificial Intelligence (Perception, Representation & Reasoning).

Speakers

Michael Schneider

Graduate Student (PhD) in Computer Science, 7 years of experience teaching programming to undergraduates, 2 years of experience teaching physical computing to middle school students.

Jeffrey Bush

Research Scientist, University of Colorado Boulder

Research Scientist at CU Boulder’s Institute of Cognitive Sciences, former high school teacher, research focus on technology and curriculum to support classroom teachers with formative assessment and computational thinking in middle and high school classrooms

Tom Curran

Former middle school science teacher, several years working as a Data Scientist in education policy and education technology platforms. Currently, a first-year Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado and previously received a Master’s Degree from the University of Chicago.