Hello! Last winter I talked on the pages of Habr about the creation . I worked on this project with my son, although, in fact, 95% of the entire development was left to me. We completed the robot (and, by the way, already disassembled it), but after that a new task arose: how to teach a child robotics on a more systematic basis? Yes, the interest remained after the completed project, but now I had to go back to the very beginning in order to slowly and thoroughly study Arduino.
In this article I will talk about how we came up with a training course for ourselves, which helps us in our learning. The material is in the public domain, you can use it at your own discretion. Of course, the course is not some kind of mega-innovative solution, but specifically in our case it works quite well.
Finding the right format
So, as I said above, the task arose of teaching a child aged 8-9 years old robotics (Arduino).
My first and obvious decision was to sit next to me, open some sketch and explain how everything works. Of course, loading it onto the board and looking at the result. It quickly became clear that this was very difficult due to my tongue-tied nature. More precisely, not in the sense that I explain poorly, but in the fact that my child and I have a huge difference in the amount of knowledge. Even my simplest and most “chewed” explanation, as a rule, turned out to be quite difficult for him. It would be suitable for middle or high school, but not for “beginners.”
Having suffered like this for some time without any visible results, we postponed the training indefinitely until we found a more suitable format. And then one day I saw how learning works on one school portal. Instead of long texts, the material there was broken down into small steps. This turned out to be exactly what was needed.
Learning in small steps
So, we have the chosen training format. Let's turn it into specific course details ().
To start, I broke each lesson down into ten steps. On the one hand, this is enough to cover the topic, on the other hand, it is not very extended in time. Based on the materials already covered, the average time to complete one lesson is 15-20 minutes (that is, as expected).
What are the individual steps? Consider, for example, a lesson on learning a breadboard:
- Introduction
- Bread board
- Power on board
- Assembly rule
- Power connection
- Details for the circuit
- Installation details
- Connecting power to the circuit
- Connecting power to the circuit (continued)
- Lesson summary
As we see, here the child gets acquainted with the layout itself; understands how food is organized on it; assembles and runs a simple circuit on it. It is impossible to fit more material into one lesson, because each step must be clearly understood and followed. As soon as when drawing up a task the thought “well, this seems clear already...” occurs, it means that during actual execution it will not be clear. So, less is more.
Naturally, we don’t forget about feedback. While my son goes through the lesson, I sit next to him and note which of the steps are difficult. It happens that the wording is unsuccessful, it happens that there is not enough explanatory photography. Then, naturally, you have to correct the material.
Tuning
Let's add a couple more pedagogical techniques to our course.
First, many steps have a specific outcome or answer. It must be specified from 2-3 options. This prevents you from getting bored or simply “scrolling through” the lesson with the “next” button. For example, you need to assemble a circuit and see exactly how the LED blinks. I think feedback after each action is better than the overall result at the end.
Secondly, I displayed our 10 lesson steps in the right corner of the interface. It turned out convenient. This is for those cases when the child studies completely independently, and you only check the result at the end. This way you can immediately see where the difficulties were (they can be discussed right away). And it is especially convenient when teaching with several children, when time is limited, but everyone needs to be monitored. Again, the overall picture will be visible, which steps most often cause difficulties.
We invite you
At the moment, this is all that has been done. The first 6 lessons have already been posted on the site, and there is a plan for 15 more (just the basics for now). If you are interested, there is an opportunity to subscribe, then when a new lesson is added you will receive a notification by email. The material can be used for any purpose. Write your wishes and comments, we will improve the course.
Source: habr.com