Month: April 2024

Empower Your Classroom with Cutting-Edge Robotics and Coding Courses

Are you ready to ignite a passion for robotics and coding in your classroom? Look no further than our collection of comprehensive course materials designed to engage and inspire students from grades 8-12.

Check out our robotics coding products at our TeachersPayTeachers store!

Whether you’re teaching beginners or seasoned programmers, our range of resources has something for everyone. Let’s dive into what our courses have to offer:

1. Robotics 1/2 Year Course for EV3

Our Robotics Programming course is a dynamic exploration of programming principles using Lego EV3 robotics equipment. Focused on programming rather than building, this course emphasizes hands-on learning and problem-solving skills. Students will cycle through stations with pre-built robots, tackling challenges and reinforcing their programming skills along the way. With 18 engaging challenges included, students will have ample opportunity to apply their newfound skills in real-world scenarios.

Key Contents:

  • Student copies of cycle materials for motor control, touch sensor control, and color sensor control.
  • Teacher master copies of all stations, including instructions, grading rubrics, and sample challenges.
  • Templates for lab reports and course syllabi.
  • Multiple-choice question banks for online assessments.
  • On-task observation rubric to keep students accountable.
  • HTML files of the question bank for easy integration into teaching platforms.

2. VEX Coding and Robotics Full-Year Course

Our VEX Coding and Robotics course is a comprehensive exploration of computer programming and its applications in robotics. Designed as a full-year curriculum, this course covers C++ programming language and practical problem-solving with VEX robots. With a focus on writing quality code and developing critical thinking skills, students will embark on a journey of discovery and innovation.

Course Overview:

  • 12 weeks of C programming language training.
  • 21 weeks of problem-solving with VEX robots.
  • 7 weeks for final projects.
  • Specialized course qualification for New York State students.

Materials Included:

  • Assessments, rubrics, and final project options.
  • HTML format multiple-choice tests with answer keys.
  • Programmer’s tests with solutions.
  • Robotics challenges and solutions.
  • Teacher presentation slideshows and sample syllabi.

3. Coding and Robotics Full-Year Course

Our Coding and Robotics course offers a comprehensive curriculum for teaching computer programming and robotics. With a focus on C programming language and practical problem-solving, students will develop essential skills for success in the digital age. Whether you’re teaching in-person or remotely, our course materials provide everything you need to deliver engaging and effective lessons.

Materials Included:

  • Assessments, rubrics, and final project options.
  • Vocabulary terms and programmer’s tests.
  • Robotics challenges and solutions.
  • Teacher presentation slideshows and sample syllabi.

Unlock the Power of Coding

Research shows that learning coding offers numerous benefits for students. From developing problem-solving and critical thinking skills to fostering creativity and innovation, coding education prepares students for success in an increasingly digital world. By incorporating coding and robotics into your curriculum, you’re not just teaching technical skills – you’re empowering students to become lifelong learners and active contributors to society.

Start Your Journey Today

Ready to transform your classroom into a hub of innovation and creativity? Explore our range of robotics and coding courses today and empower your students to become the problem-solvers and innovators of tomorrow. With comprehensive course materials and easy integration into existing teaching platforms, our resources are designed to streamline your teaching experience and maximize student learning outcomes. Unlock the potential of robotics and coding in your classroom – start your journey with us today!

Revolutionize Your Teaching with Innovation Assessments LLC

Are you ready to take your teaching to the next level? Look no further than Innovation Assessments LLC – your one-stop destination for 21st-century learning space and resources designed specifically for secondary school teachers. With a suite of innovative tools and digital teaching materials, we’re here to empower educators and enhance student learning experiences like never before.

A Comprehensive Teaching Platform

At Innovation Assessments LLC, we understand the challenges that educators face in today’s ever-changing educational landscape. That’s why we’ve developed a robust online teaching platform that caters to the diverse needs of teachers and students alike. Whether you’re looking to streamline content creation, assess student learning, or facilitate remote teaching, our platform has you covered.

Our software-as-a-service (SaaS) online teaching platform offers a seamless experience for educators seeking to organize their online content and assess students’ learning. With utilities for teaching and assessing reading, writing, and content knowledge, Innovation is a versatile tool that caters to a wide range of instructional needs. Plus, integration with popular platforms like Google Classroom and Moodle makes it easy to incorporate Innovation into your existing teaching workflow.

Evolution in Action

But Innovation is more than just a testing service – it’s a dynamic platform that has evolved to meet the demands of real teachers and students in real classrooms. What started as a test generator for multiple-choice tests has grown into a comprehensive teaching platform that empowers educators to engage learners in new and exciting ways.

With features like Proctor AI and study apps, Innovation provides educators with valuable insights and tools to support student success. The platform’s collaborative approach, involving input from real teachers and students, ensures that it remains relevant and effective in today’s educational landscape.

Join the Innovation Revolution

Ready to revolutionize your teaching? Join the Innovation revolution today and discover the power of our comprehensive teaching platform. Whether you’re a seasoned educator or just starting out, Innovation Assessments LLC has the tools and resources you need to succeed in the modern classroom. Sign up now and unlock a world of possibilities for you and your students.

Teaching World Languages Remotely, Part 4: Developing Conversation

Upon retiring from full-time public school teaching in 2023, I took part-time working teaching French remotely. Teaching via video conferencing turns out to be a terrific method and a very satisfying work!

Being also a web developer for a platform designed for remote teaching and in-class 1:1 designs, I was inspired by this work to begin developing a set of applications specifically for teaching world languages remotely.

I always loved improv and when teaching social studies or French in my career, my students and I enjoyed role play as a learning tool that was fun and meaningful. My practice was to incorporate many exercises to develop conversational proficiency using improv or semi-improvised “scaffold” dialogues.

The improv app at Innovation is now well developed. This app is available to subscribers only right now from the Language Console of the dashboard.

The teacher shares the screen in a remote teaching situation (or in-person, displays the screen in class). The first thing is to select the proficiency level. I use the CEFR descriptors.

A notice appears in red in the center advising students not to use AI while participating. This was sometimes an issue for me with some remote students, who quickly consulted Google translate instead of improvising their own contributions to our conversation. Teachers can remove this notice by clicking in.

Once the difficulty level is chosen, the teacher can select from the available conversation themes. These correspond to typical topics taught in world language classes that employ thematic units as the method. The reader will notice in the graphic that a scorecard appears on the right. The scoring method is that used in speaking tasks on New York State world language assessments and instructions are available at the click of a button.

Once the teacher has selected the theme, a set of possible dialogues appears.

Upon selecting the prompt, the conversation can begin. As the dialogue proceeds, the teacher can track the attempts and utterances in the scorecard on the right. They can award 2 points for utterances which are comprehensible, appropriate, and make no surprising errors for level. the can award 1 point for utterances that are not quite right for that student’s expected proficiency. The app automatically calculates the grade.

Now what I like to do is to use the large textarea in the center to provide useful words or phrases that the student asked for or needed during the dialogue.

List the expressions with their meaning separated by an equal sign. Here’s why: the Innovation flashcards app has been integrated so that we can study the phrases! Scroll down just a wee bit and you will find a small button called “Cards”. This will extract those phrases and arrange them into flash cards for study!

My practice is then to give students a copy of that list via email or in their lesson notes. They can themselves use Innovation’s Quick Flashcards app to generate their own drills for later.

The development of the improv app at Innovation has been a particularly exciting work. By incorporating elements of improvisation and conversation scaffolding, I’ve aimed to make language learning both engaging and effective for students in remote teaching contexts as well as for in-person learning. The app’s integration with other features such as proficiency level selection, themed dialogues, and real-time scoring ensures a comprehensive learning experience.

Introducing a New App: Ordered Lists

After a long hiatus while teaching social studies, I began a return to teaching French in 2018. I am a bit of a digital pack rat and was glad to find most of the teaching resources for French that I had developed in the 1990s still on an old hard drive. One of these is a unit for teaching a graphic novel called Astérix chez les bretons.

I found in that trove of activities a reading comprehension task that I had forgotten about: the ordered list or chronology. After reading the text and doing the usual vocabulary and comprehension kinds of tasks, I presented students a set of sentences where the events were out of order. On the worksheet, they were to number them in correct order according to the text. This was a great way to reinforce not only the events in the story, but more importantly the vocabulary and reading skills I was working to support.

I am currently teaching French online and one of my classes has chosen this graphic novel for a unit of study. Since I am teaching remotely, I want digital 21st century learning spaces instead of PDF worksheets. And so out of necessity was born this new app at Innovation, the ordered list.

The ordered list is simple: students either drag and drop or use the buttons to arrange the text boxes in order. They can check their progress as they go and submit a score when done. I can see how this would have been very useful when I was teaching history!

This needed to be easy for the teacher to create. It’s a snap: the teacher merely pastes in the ordered list and clicks a button to generate the activity.

As added features, one can attach a PDF document, an audio file, and/or embed a video from YouTube or Vimeo. The student could be prompted to order the text boxes based on these sources.

The usual 21st century learning spaces features are integrated. Teachers will see in the audit when their students access the task and how long they spend on it. The proctor monitors access to the page and student attention. It’s easy to view the scores of grades are taken and to apply standardized scoring or any of the other Innovation features and functions.

Try it for yourself! Use this passcode to access a chronology task for the American Revolution at the Innovation TestDrive: 397Q-NMXL-A15625Z-9-JON