We’re happy to announce that we have awarded our EdTech grant for October to Josh Jennings, who is a high school educator in the Florence County School District 3 in South Carolina! He helps lead the school’s Panther CODE (Creating Opportunities for Developing Engineers) program after school. They'd established this program to help give their underrepresented students more exposure to STEM. Josh works to facilitate progressively more complex PBL challenges and, using coding materials, drives more interest in STEM!
Besides its connection to the importance of coding skills, the CODE program also injects students into the programming world. Their school is located in rural South Carolina and features a student population that’s primarily African American and Latino, which is something we have talked a lot about along with ensuring that students of all backgrounds have access to the kinds of opportunities that will help them build STEAM proficiencies. As we'd certainly agree, equipping all students with STEM readiness begins with opportunity. And, the CODE program is one way that Josh and his colleagues have committed to their students.
Josh is actively trying to recruit students to participate in the CODE program and create STEM experiences they haven't had. As you may expect, these experiences emphasize STEM subjects and, for many kids, it’s their first opportunity to explore coding. Josh and his colleagues have set this program up so that students are first introduced to the basics of coding and using computational thinking to solve real problems. Since he’s a big proponent of project-based learning, Josh also encourages students to use a PBL approach in solving coding challenges and will continue doing so after receiving his grant materials.
Josh is still actively growing the CODE program, but plans for returning students to complete progressively complex challenges each year. One of the first things he’s hoping for is a full return to in-person instruction, which could happen in 2021. As long as students are there in person, we’ll be providing them with some of the STEAM materials they need. With help from our partners at Makeblock, we’re providing an assortment of their products to help Josh out. He's requested a couple mBot Ranger’s, a couple Airblock drones, and an mBot-S Kit, which we’re happy to provide!
If you’re not familiar with these STEM tools from Makeblock, they’re very versatile as it pertains to beginner STEM education. In addition to being programmable using the mBlock coding language, students can also engineer each of these technology tools, allowing children of any ability to work together when solving real-world problems. Yes, even the Airblock drone features multiple pieces (and even multiple options when it comes to construction shape) and both of the robots come with all the parts students need to build them themselves. They’re definitely perfect for Josh, who wants to ensure students get the chances to develop both engineering and programming skills. Once they receive their grant materials and students build their devices, they can then get started with coding!
Each one provides kids with entry-level exposure to coding, which is all Josh wants them to experience at this point. It’s all about building from that initial interest and using their experiences with participating in the CODE program to keep them coming back and, ultimately, pursue a future in STEM. He’s also cognizant of the fact that most of the students he works with at the high school level have no coding experience prior to showing up for afterschool meetings and wants to make sure they don't feel intimidated by the technology that’s (literally) on the table. Knowing that, these solutions are suitable if, for no other reason, they're more exciting and intriguing than complex and intimidating.
Ultimately, Josh hopes to inspire a further interest in coding and help students understand how this fits into tomorrow's workforce. With engineering also a piece of the STEAM workforce, it’s only fitting that he chose to use the mBot, which is both engineerable and programable. We should also mention that these students don’t currently have options to take coding classes at their high school. But, Josh has ensured they at least have the option to join this afterschool program for some valuable STEM experiences. He’s hoping that, as participation in the CODE program grows, there will eventually be computer science classes at the school.
We are definitely excited to provide Josh and his students with these Makeblock kits and we thank him for applying for our grant. This program definitely sounds extremely promising and we look forward to hearing about some of the great things that happen! If you’re interested in applying for an EdTech grant, we’d love to have you fill out our application. We award a $500 grant every month and the next application period is from Nov. 1-Nov. 20. We’ll then select a recipient sometime after Nov. 20 and notify that person before the end of the month! Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram, too!