How long have you been a teacher?
I’ve been a teacher for 30 years, but I did have 7 years off when I had my children.

What ages and subjects do you teach?
I’m trained as a high-school teacher, and as a high-school teacher I taught science and then I also taught physics, biology, and general science. But then, after some time off, I started teaching science at a local primary school, and did that for 12 years. And now I’ve changed to Gordon East Primary, where I’ve been for four years.

Why did you originally become a teacher?
I became a teacher because it ticks a whole lot of boxes for me. I really like working with children. It sounds altruistic, but I try to make a difference. I really enjoy finding that bit that makes their eyes shine and then working on it, and building on it. I find that hugely satisfying. I enjoy being part of a team that’s not about sales, it’s just about helping kids, and everyone wants the kids to progress. And, it’s not high on the list but it’s pretty good, when you have your own kids, that the holidays fit in!

What are the most important things that you want your students to learn?
I want them to learn how to think for themselves, how to answer questions, how to problem solve, and how to find the best in themselves, and to develop that.

And from the robotics, there’s lots I want them to learn from it. I don’t know what the main thing is, but what I feel really passionate about is I want to be able to extend the top kids. I want to give them open-ended problem solving. And for the kids who find life really difficult, I want them to want to come to school because there’s a program they can do, they can do hands-on LEGO, they can do programming. There are a lot of kids that don’t fit, but with the LEGO they find a fit.

I also like to promote education of boys. I think that girls do better in the current education system than boys, and I like the fact that it provide a platform where boys can achieve.

I want them to do controlled risk-taking. Because so many kids are bubble-wrapped and don’t take many risks, and especially high-achieving children, they’re scared of failure. I want for them to do something and it fails, and be happy that it fails, because it makes them ask, “why?”. If everything works the first time, they haven’t really pushed themselves, have they? Fail fast, ask why, and move on. And a failure is not really a failure, it just means that it didn’t work. It’s a process of elimination. I like the resilience building that comes out of that.

I like the concept that we can copy everybody and, unless it’s a test, it’s a collaborative think-tank. The kids find that really amusing, and that if you can’t work out a solution, go shopping, go around the room and get someone’s ideas.

It’s really important to develop the teamwork, that everything is a team. There’s no “I”, it’s “we”. There’s the team of the two children as pairs. I like to get mentor pairs going. There’s the team within the class, and the team within the grade.

When did you get started with using LEGO in the classroom?
Back on the time of the RCX bricks, CSIRO came out to our school for an incursion, and I just thought it was really cool and got some sets. Back then I just taught each year 5 and 6 for a term, so the students had one term in year 5, and one term in term 6.

And then, after quite some time, I left that school, and was looking for part-time work, and contacted a local school that was interested in LEGO robotics. I rang them and said, “if you want to give me a job, I can run a LEGO program for you”. I then had every child from year 2 to year 6 for either an hour or an hour-and-a-quarter each week, so it was a much bigger thing than previously. I now have every child for an hour a week for the whole their school life from year 2 to year 6.

What are the greatest challenges or blockers?
The year 5 and 6 are always a composite class. I introduce them to MINDSTORMS in year 5 and 6, so every year half the class has a year more experience than the other.

How did you manage this?
I always do mentor systems. Mentoring is absolutely terrific and works really well for the first term, but I find that with having them for only an hour a week, some of the top year sixes really want to be able to move ahead. I’ve done it with mentor partners. I put two very capable students as mentors for another pair of students. Each pair works at their own rate with their partner, but they have a mentor to go to, which I found as a bit of a solution.

Every challenge I do has at least three levels. Last year, I let the students choose their levels. That came with problems, because I talked them up about challenging themselves, and putting themselves out of their comfort zone, and they all did that! And then weren’t prepared to step back. So that’s why I introduced a badge system (the “Driver’s Licence Program”), where everyone had to work through all the different levels.

How does robotics fit into the curriculum in your school?
It interlinks with Maths, Science and Technology, and a bit of English, but what the Principal got me in to do was open-ended problem-solving, resilience-building, and team work.

Is there a student you could tell me about that’s been positively affected by this approach?
There was a girl, who was a bit left-field, not clever in the traditional sense, but had the most amazing work habits and passion. I put her into my FIRST LEGO League team and she worked doggedly at that board, day in and day out. It brought her out of herself, and she just blossomed. The robotics helped her to grow into herself, and she went onto high school and won so many awards on presentation day that she couldn’t carry them all!

Do you have any tips for other people who want to get started with LEGO robotics?
I think that WeDo is a really good starting point for people doing LEGO robotics. I think a lot of people want to go into NXTs or EV3s, but for people who aren’t particularly experienced, they should start with the WeDo.

I think the WeDo is an amazing, overlooked little system that people can confidently do. As a teacher, you don’t need to know a lot, but if you know more, you can get a lot more out of it.

 

Thank you for reading

 

Mrs Garlick