Using learning centers with VEX 123 or VEX GO in your classroom can be a highly effective way to provide students with an opportunity to begin to grow their independence as learners as they are learning computer science. However, students need scaffolded support in order to learn to use centers, and to stay on-task and focused while using centers, especially if they are new to center-based learning. The following suggestions may be helpful as you implement teaching with 123 or GO in a learning center in your classroom.
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Establish expectations and procedures for how students should use each center and explicitly teach them to students.
- Show and tell what is in a center, where materials go, how students can tell what they are supposed to be doing (ie. what the challenge is), how to clean up a space, what the turns or jobs are, etc.
- Then, have students give âtoursâ of centers, to demonstrate their understanding of of how to use the center, including how to take turns and share their robots
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Support students to be successful turn-takers by modeling and setting up procedures to scaffold sharing behaviors as students are learning.
- Make sure each partner has a clear job to do, so if it is not their turn to touch the robot, they still have something meaningful to do.
- Use a timer so students know exactly when it is time to pass the robot to their partner, and they know that they are each getting equal time with the robot.
- Guide students through role plays in which they practice scenarios for turn-taking, demonstrating both what they should do when it is their turn and what they should do when they are waiting for a turn!
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Give students multiple visual cues that take the surprise out of whose turn it is, or how long they have to wait until their own turn.
- Post a visual schedule for students on a classroom wall or bulletin board so they can reference it and know how long they have to wait. Consistently refer to this schedule and teach students to do so as well.
- Use Art Rings or Art Ring Canvases to create name tags students can place on the robot.
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Capitalize on studentsâ engagement with the robot and offer additional times for coding during the day.
- Offer students opportunities to use the robot at other times during the day, such as recess or choice time, or when they are finished with other assignments
- Use the robot as a reward! Allow students to earn additional time for being helpful, or taking turns successfully in centers!
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Donât be afraid to reteach!
- If students are having difficulty using the centers appropriately, donât hesitate to press the pause button and reteach the procedures. Students may need to practice using the centers multiple times before they can be successful, and thatâs ok.
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These are great reminders not only for the beginning of the year, but also for those times throughout the year when our kids just need some reminders. Turn taking, sharing, and collaborative behaviors are learned behaviors, which is sometimes easy to forget (at least for me). So just like anything else, they need to be practiced, talked about, reinforced, and grown over time. Iâm sure there are many more ideas that could be added to this list - maybe we can keep the conversation going in this thread⊠Iâll tag a few of my fellow elementary school folks to see if they have more ideas to add 
@Laura_Mackay @Heidi_Danner @Anna_Blake @Jessica_Drayer @James_Nesbitt
I love these reminders! It is always important to revisit the expectations throughout the school year. One strategy mentioned above that I LOVE is assigning team roles. This is something I do with my competition VEX teams and I have adopted it in the library with my Kinder and 1st-grade students. Here is a link to a slide deck that I have adapted for younger grade levels. It leverages the same team roles we use in VEX IQ and VRC but simplifies and generalizes the language to apply them to VEX 123 projects.
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@James_Nesbitt I agree! Assigning roles is such a great way to help students clearly understand what is expected of them as well as to set them up to be successful! When I taught second grade and we were doing project work which required collaboration, I would assign roles and then have them help me write âjob descriptionsâ for each role, so they had dedicated time to consider what they should (and should not!) be doing when they were working in collaborative groups.
When I was teaching the approach to spring break (or basically right around the Feb-March) timeframe usually seemed to be a time that Iâd find myself doing some collaboration/teamwork reminders in class, so I thought Iâd try to bring this thread back up, as these might be useful tips and tricks for this time of year
Sometimes this involved an environment shake up â where together with the class, weâd collectively redesign our classroom layout, as that gave us an objective and creative way to talk about some of the things that were, to be frank, bugging me (like clean up or turn taking in a space). It gave students a way to reflect on how theyâd grown over the course of the year, and what they needed/wanted to have in the classroom to reflect that growth. It also gave students ownership over the spaces in a way that motivated them to take care of them together.
The same thing can be done with our roles/routines around teamwork and turn taking. Revisiting roles together and perhaps re-writing their job descriptions can let students reflect on how theyâve grown, it models that they are living documents, and gives students a way to talk through and solve problems that you might be seeing or dealing with more frequently in a non-threatening way.
What do you do to keep the collaborative spark alive at this point in the year? Iâll tag @Desiree_White-Price, @Tina_Dietrich, and @Danielle_McCoy to get the ball rolling
@Audra_Selkowitz Itâs great that you bring this up! I just had this conversation with my class this week. They are using less collaboration and struggling with taking turns right now! Every year I buddy up my 3rd graders with a Kindergarten class. This time of year it works well, because they are always willing to let a younger student take turns because they feel like the âteacherâ. Then when we come back to working with peers, I can relate what theyâve done with their âbuddyâ, and ways to help each other without taking over. Itâs also a great time to talk about having your feelings hurt when you donât get to participate or get a turn.
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@Audra_Selkowitz In my classroom we have now shifted from 1st grade to second grade ready. This is allowing the students to show how they have matured from the beginning of the year and allowing me to take a step back. Students are now working more independently. Yesterday, I introduced them to VEXcode 123. They often see the âbigâ kids come in the morning for troubleshooting for Go. They were amazed at being able to do what they are doing.
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What a wonderful strategy @Tina_Dietrich You could probably also do some collaborative coding activities with your little buddies too. Did you know that the Art Ring for 123 can fit the pins from VEX GO into the holes? Your 3rd graders could build things and then snap them onto their little buddiesâ robots and code together.
Thatâs awesome @Desiree_White-Price ! I do love when we can start to see the âfruits of our laborsâ in elementary school in these ways! It can get easy to get bogged down in the day to day, but there really is such tremendous growth that is made, particularly in these early years. And the way youâre framing it gives them great motivation and is something positive to strive towards, rather than anything negative.
@Audra_Selkowitz I actually have something similar to that in the worksâŠbut I donât want to spoil it yet! I will share later though!
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Oooooh! I canât wait!!!
This is an awesome idea because ya know⊠itâs also nearing PSSA time 
I even like this idea for review for perimeter & area or the students could even build their dream classroom and create their own classroom expectations & rules that they would like to share with their incoming 5th grade peers next school year! Thanks for sharing!!
Absolutely @Danielle_McCoy! Part of our classroom revamp was always good measuring practice and mapping things out in a way that was also a good introduction to the idea of constraints. You might want to put the library in that space, but we have to make sure we can get out of the door, or to the sink safely and easily.
I also think that things like this help to reinforce the value that the classroom is our space - not mine or yours, but ours together â which helps build community in a nice way at this point in the year. The kids would inevitably think about othersâ needs/interests as well as their own, which was really nice to see.
