What are your top 'learnings' from this year that help you teach with VEX?

As many teachers and school are nearing the homestretch of the school year (aka. after Spring Break), I thought this could be a good time to start some of the ‘end of year reflections’ a little earlier. I often found myself doing this at the very end of the year, and making the lists of ‘next year I’ll totally do ___’ as I looked back and thought about what I had learned through that year of teaching. This is great in that it helps us stay motivated for the fall, but I always felt like if I did this reflecting just a little bit earlier, maybe I could have applied things to the current year.

With that in mind - here is my question - What are your top ‘learnings’ from this year, that will help you teach with VEX?

This could be based on something that went really well for you that you want to be sure to keep up, or perhaps learning from the other side of things when something didn’t go as well as you had hoped. Perhaps its from learning you did in PD+, or conversations you had with other educators. The idea is just to offer up your top few, in the hopes that this thread then becomes a place for everyone to see and share and adapt ideas to take into their own practice - this year, and in the future.

I’ll tag a couple of people to get the ball rolling, like @James_Nesbitt, @Tina_Dietrich, @Laura_Mackay, @Anna_Blake, @Seth_Ogoe_Ayim, @Jessica_Drayer, @Michael_Poelzl. Feel free to tag another teacher when you post to keep the conversation going!

1 Like

@Audra_Selkowitz First I would like to start by saying that everything I have learned from other great Vex Educators here on PD+ or ones that I met at The Educators Conference in Dallas, TX…like @Jessica_Drayer @Omar_Cortez @Anna_Blake @Laura_Mackay @LORI_COLANGELO just to name a few gave me a long list of new things I want to try next school year. One of the MOST important things I learned, because this was my first year teaching with VEX, is that you need to find the best way to keep your classroom kits organized. Be very clear what these expectations are with your students. Make them accountable and responsible…give them ownership! That is the only way to keep yourself sane with the many, many small pieces included in the Vex Go kits! And don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Just because you have a scope and sequence does not mean that you are stuck to that. This is the first time in a long time that I felt like I could be creative with my teaching. Find ways to make cross-curricular connections between Vex Robotics and your Math, ELA, and Science/Social Studies Curriculum. If you run out of ideas…reach out to the PD+ Community…any one of us would love to help! I’m really excited to see where Vex takes us next year!

@Danielle_McCoy @Desiree_White-Price

2 Likes