Work collaboratively: Robotics social clubs

teaching practice

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For student year

Years 7 to 12

Helps students to

collaborate

encourage others

work in a team

Helps teachers to

scaffold turn-taking

scaffold communication

teach team roles

Summary

This practice contains two of nine challenges for robotics social clubs.

Working collaboratively is critical for successful relationships. In the Australian Curriculum, students develop personal and social capability as they learn to:

share experiences of cooperation
identify cooperative behaviours in play and group activities
contribute to teamwork and group cohesion
suggest improvements to achieve personal and group objectives.

The two robotics challenges in this practice target and scaffold students' ability to work collaboratively:

Mexican wave
Escape from the city

These challenges each take 1–2 sessions of approximately 45 minutes. You can invite parents to the end of these challenges for a demonstration and opportunity for teaching.

If you need to build a robot, begin with the starter challenge in the Communicate effectively: Robotics social clubs practice. You could also provide students with pre-made robots.

How the practice works

Robotics challenge: Mexican wave

Work with your team and the whole robotics social club to create a Mexican wave with your robots. You can only use ‘forward’, ‘backward’, and ‘wait for’ commands.

Extend this challenge by discussing what commands each team wants to add, e.g. movement or sound.

Mexican wave: Programming

Robotics challenge: Escape from the city

Program your robot to stay within the city walls using the colour sensor. The robot should identify the tape, move backwards, turn, and then move forwards. Escape from the city first.

Escape from the city: Programming

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Preparing to teach

Documents needed for the session

Session checklist

This checklist helps each session run smoothly. Technical issues are not uncommon, so it is helpful to go through this checklist at least a day or two before each robotics social club session to allow time for troubleshooting and preparing resources.

Download (311.84 KB)

Session schedule

This standard schedule and learning process describes each robotics social club session to best support students’ learning. While the content will change depending on the robotics challenge and matching Personal and Social Capability teamwork skill, this schedule and learning process will remain constant.

Download (509.89 KB)

Rules poster

Ideally, print and display this rules poster in the room each week, and remind students of them regularly. These rules can be referred to when rewarding students’ positive behaviour.

Download (359.17 KB)

Australian Curriculum Social Management continuum

Reflect on the skill level of the students on the autism spectrum in your club. Use this continuum to ‘plot’ their current skill level in each of the five Social Management areas. If you are not familiar with the students, you may like to consult with their case manager and/or class teachers to help identify their areas of strength and need.

Download (470.37 KB)

Student reflection sheet: Work collaboratively

Use the student reflection sheets to scaffold outcomes for students.

Download (265.14 KB)

Robot design process

Use this visual to support students as they move through the robot design process: Ask, plan, create, evaluate, improve.

Download (211.67 KB)

Teacher monitoring chart: Work collaboratively

Use a monitoring chart during the session to show students and teams how they are going. Draw students' attention to this as you record their successes.

Download (274.13 KB)

Weekly teacher reflection

After each robotics social club session, complete this checklist of effective strategies to quickly reflect on:

what is working well that you should continue

what is not working for your club

what you might change for next time

any new ideas that you might like to start trying next time.

Feel free to add your own ideas and strategies.

Download (337.38 KB)

In the classroom

The following session schedule and learning process supports student learning and remains constant across all robotics social club sessions. However, the content changes depending on each robotics challenge and the matching Personal and Social Capability teamwork skill.

You can download a copy of this schedule and other documents needed for these challenges from ‘A. Plan’ above.

Step 1: Introduction (5 minutes)

Introduce the visual schedule of the session, e.g.

Introduction
Planning
Robotics challenge
Halfway monitoring
Evaluation and pack up.

Briefly outline or review the club rules (refer to the rules poster).
If necessary, facilitate formation of new teams and record new team and robot names.
Play the short robotics challenge video for students.

Step 2: Planning (10–15 minutes)

What does it look like? How can I achieve this?

Briefly introduce the specific teamwork skill, learning intention, and success criteria (refer to the student reflection sheet and/or teacher monitoring chart).
Demonstrate/model the skill, e.g. through roleplay or giving examples of language. You may choose to demonstrate meeting or not meeting the success criteria.
Students evaluate the teacher against the success criteria.
Students generate their own demonstration or examples of how to meet the success criteria, e.g. through a ‘think, pair, share’ activity. Use discretion as to whether students are ready to demonstrate in front of the group.
Depending on the robotics challenge, you may choose to prompt students to use the robot design process to plan their robotics challenge before beginning working time (if so, add 5 minutes to planning time).

Step 3: Robotics challenge and monitoring (45–55 minutes)

Pause for student monitoring halfway through working time:

What am I doing well? What do I need to keep working on?

Teach programming content if necessary, referring to programming videos as needed.
Give students working time. Students complete the robotics challenge in their teams, and teachers implement effective strategies to support students’ learning of the teamwork skill, e.g. growth mindset; prompting; praise and positive reinforcement. Refer to the teacher reflection as a reminder.
Throughout the working time, use the monitoring chart and positive reinforcement system for successful demonstration of success criteria.
Pause for student monitoring halfway through the robotics challenge working time. Students complete the success criteria rubric and identify what they are doing well and what they can improve on.
If parents have been invited, they may be present for approximately last 30 minutes of session (last 20 minutes of robotics challenge time).

Step 4: Evaluation and pack up (15 minutes)

What did I do well? What do I need to keep working on next time?

At the end of the session, students once again complete the success criteria rubric, reflecting on what they did well and what they can improve on next time. Support students to self-reflect on their demonstration of teamwork skills.
Refer to the monitoring chart and positive reinforcement system to praise and provide feedback to specific teams and students. Invite students to give positive and constructive feedback to peers.
Pack up.
Advise students of the robotics challenge for the next session, providing them with something to think about to help them prepare for the next session.