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It’s game on for Year 6!

Our Year 6 students were bursting with energy and excitement this week as they programmed robots and created interactive games based on Louis Sachar’s book, Holes!

We all know that children learn best when teaching aligns with their natural exuberance, energy and curiosity. This week, the Year 6 classrooms have been abuzz with excitement as students worked together to solve an interesting set of challenges. It required all their communication, collaboration, risk taking and problem-solving skills to succeed, as well as bucket-loads of imagination!

It all began when Mr Pomfrett decided to capitalise on his previous experience of helping students program robots for the Robocup Competition. This inspired him to extend students’ programming skills by working with Mrs Frogatt and Ms Turrall to devise an inquiry-based learning project that cleverly combined Year 6’s study of English, Science and Technology.

In English this year, Year 6 have been reading Holes. The story revolves around the adventures of a boy called Stanley Yelnats, who is sent to a juvenile detention camp called Camp Green Lake for a crime he did not commit. Stanley and the other boys at the camp are forced to dig large holes in the dirt every day. Stanley quickly realises that the warden is forcing them to dig holes in order to find something buried deep beneath Camp Green Lake.

The teachers decided to capitalise on the students’ enthusiasm for the story by immersing them in a creative and collaborative activity that would not only give their reading fresh meaning and purpose but would also engage their minds and imaginations! And improve their technology skills too!

Working independently in groups, the students were given the task of building a robot using a LEGO EV3 kit. Then, using the LEGO Mindstorms program, they had to code their robot to complete a series of increasingly difficult challenges based around the story of Holes. The aim was that in completing all seven challenges, the students could finally discover the secret of what is buried at Camp Green Lake.

Mr Pomfrett said, “We wanted to develop a growth mindset where students could work at their own level, but also have the motivation to keep going. Everything online involved prescribed activities, but we wanted something that would engage every single student and motivate them to develop more skills, which is how we came up with this idea.”

The students quickly found that programming robots to change speed, rotate and move at different angles and directions, all while producing sounds and lights, is not as easy as it looks. To be successful, they had to determine what problem they were trying to solve before coding their robots. The students also had to conduct their own research to solve problems and find solutions. Documenting each step in a journal using OneNote Class Note book was a clever way of encouraging the students to reflect on their decision making and to represent their thinking in a clear and informative way.

There was even greater excitement on Thursday when students invited their grandparents in to Hooke House for the morning and had an opportunity to showcase their learning to them. The grandparents were equally excited to see their granddaughters’ technological prowess as well as their enthusiasm for learning!

The next challenge that the students will face over the coming weeks is to create an interactive Keynote, which will serve as a study guide for Holes. The Keynote must work like a website, utilising the hyperlink function. There will also be the opportunity for students to explore other features with Keynote, creating quizzes, games, and even incorporating videos from other apps if they wish. They are only limited by their imagination. Students must also draw a flow chart to illustrate how the links connect information together. 

Education has long used elements found in games to deepen student engagement and improve learning outcomes. One of the key attractions of this project has been its ability to deliver content and understanding about Digital Systems in an engaging way. The students have had so much fun that they've been motivated to persist with the learning process and overcome setbacks in order to seek out higher levels of achievement and challenge.

There has also been a lot of learning in this task for our teachers. They’ve had to adjust, adapt and develop different aspects of the project to meet the needs of each and every student, and respond to their problems and queries.

Mr Pomfrett said, “As educators, we learn as we go with this type of project and sometimes it seems to have a life of its own. Moving forward, we would like to share and collaborate with other educators.”