Teach WAM to the young
LoopyByteloose
Posts: 12,537
Having gotten several WAM kits here in Taiwan, I am now trying to figure out how to get started.
Just jumping into book and teaching page by page is not really a good way to engage young kids. So it looks like I will have to do those mundane lesson plans and try to suppliment the book with a lot of other things.
My first impression on opening the bagged WAM V2.2 kit is that there is a need for something seriously different for a first class. You don't want to just whet students interest by loading drivers and IDEs - though you can do all that too.
So what to do? For a day or so I was at a loss, but these kids are likely to include some rank beginners. And that means starting with the physical oddities that are being given to them.
The components are all there, but rather efficiently clumped together in one or two clumps. At some point I am going to have to make sure they understand what the components are and what they do. Otherwise, they will never move on to Ohms Law and other items in any useful manner.
So if one takes about 6 small baggies and prints out cards with both the names and the schematic symbols on them, the first class can do some useful sorting and identification while verifying that everything is there.
So, the leds will go in one bag, the resistors (including pots) in another, a 9 volt battery in another, the capacitors in yet another, the switches in another, and so one. Suddenly the kids are getting a lecture on reading schematics with a useful means of identifying the actual components.
I might add a few more transistors and caps, as I have in mind going outside the WAM texts and teaching what a flip-flop is. Later, it might be triggered by the BasicStamp. Also, there is a very important reason to teach equivalent circuits early on, and the WAM kit presumes that will be taught elsewhere.
In other words, the WAM kit will have to be boosted to survey all the basics of electricity and might spend a bit of time wandering between analog and digital.
But the beauty of the WAM is that all the building and experimentation can be done on the little breadboard provided. I would have never thought of using it merely has a power supply and platform for teaching circuitry that is unrelated to a digital device -- but one did.
Thank you, Andy Lindsay
I've got a lot to do if I am going to have formal lesson plans. This may take a few weeks or more than a month to do well. But at least I can now see how the WAM kit can fit into a much broader and more complete introductory course for children. You can't just throw a circuit board at a kid and get them to code. You have to help them notice a lot of things and absorb the usefulness of all the details.
Still, the WAM kit is quite adequate for the DIYer with some background. I just guess that as a teacher, I know that more successful outcomes occur if the teacher also has something to say, makes sure key points are gotten, and helps the students have fun.
Just jumping into book and teaching page by page is not really a good way to engage young kids. So it looks like I will have to do those mundane lesson plans and try to suppliment the book with a lot of other things.
My first impression on opening the bagged WAM V2.2 kit is that there is a need for something seriously different for a first class. You don't want to just whet students interest by loading drivers and IDEs - though you can do all that too.
So what to do? For a day or so I was at a loss, but these kids are likely to include some rank beginners. And that means starting with the physical oddities that are being given to them.
The components are all there, but rather efficiently clumped together in one or two clumps. At some point I am going to have to make sure they understand what the components are and what they do. Otherwise, they will never move on to Ohms Law and other items in any useful manner.
So if one takes about 6 small baggies and prints out cards with both the names and the schematic symbols on them, the first class can do some useful sorting and identification while verifying that everything is there.
So, the leds will go in one bag, the resistors (including pots) in another, a 9 volt battery in another, the capacitors in yet another, the switches in another, and so one. Suddenly the kids are getting a lecture on reading schematics with a useful means of identifying the actual components.
I might add a few more transistors and caps, as I have in mind going outside the WAM texts and teaching what a flip-flop is. Later, it might be triggered by the BasicStamp. Also, there is a very important reason to teach equivalent circuits early on, and the WAM kit presumes that will be taught elsewhere.
In other words, the WAM kit will have to be boosted to survey all the basics of electricity and might spend a bit of time wandering between analog and digital.
But the beauty of the WAM is that all the building and experimentation can be done on the little breadboard provided. I would have never thought of using it merely has a power supply and platform for teaching circuitry that is unrelated to a digital device -- but one did.
Thank you, Andy Lindsay
I've got a lot to do if I am going to have formal lesson plans. This may take a few weeks or more than a month to do well. But at least I can now see how the WAM kit can fit into a much broader and more complete introductory course for children. You can't just throw a circuit board at a kid and get them to code. You have to help them notice a lot of things and absorb the usefulness of all the details.
Still, the WAM kit is quite adequate for the DIYer with some background. I just guess that as a teacher, I know that more successful outcomes occur if the teacher also has something to say, makes sure key points are gotten, and helps the students have fun.
Comments
Actually, I am split between two teaching approaches for the Taiwanese.
One is to get a local techinical university's Electronics Department to become involved by offering them 6 units for use in a student robotics club setting with payment to be in the form of publication IN CHINESE of their observations and opinions. I suppose a Yahoo Group will be the web focus for all that.
The second approach is to gift a WAM kit to each of my private students that is willing to complete all the tasks with me as part of their English studies. They will be allowed to use all materials available in Chinese, but must learn to use the English language references as well. No one is as young as 8 years old, the youngest is 10 with pretty good English comprehension in everyday conversation and has shown some previous interest in electronics. His school allowed him to participate in a robotics class that used Lego's products.
Bags aren't the right solution anyway. You need some small compartmentalized plastic boxes. Every educator seems to have their own approach, but almost always they have a good storage system for components.
And you can do the driver/software for them. I'd also not have them do the setup process- will take the wind right out of their sails.
Like what you're doing. Keep the updates coming!
Ken Gracey
It is always nice to hear from you as you are a very busy man.
A careful reading of the WAM Preface through the First Chapter pretty much confirms what you say.
Have the installation of software done in preparation for the class and not as an opening salvo. It is much easier if all computers are ready to go and operationally verified. The most difficult case would be to have 25 students bring in their own laptops with a variety of XP, Windows 98, Vista, and W7. If Apples and Linux are in there too, it could be a huge headache.
If the students MUST provide there own computers and varied OSes, it may be best to have them install the IDE in a one-on-one workshop a few weeks before the actual class begins. That individual attention is likely to go a long way toward building confidence from the start.
The younger your students, the more you are going to have to ease them into computers, file systems, and connecting all the cables correctly. Very young kids just goof a lot - spills and mistakes are just a part of their rapidly growing awareness of the world. It is all very innocent and rigorous control just makes them perceive the teacher as a bully rather than a mentor.
Boxes versus baggies might be subject to a bit more debate. It is not a very serious one.
There is an appeal of one box of components for each student with a slot for everything. The student gets his name on his box and is given the responsibility for all of it. Some kids are very good at loosing things and this is a way of at least trying to get them to realize their messy-ness is working against them.
I started with the baggies because I have tiny 2 inch ones on hand that I personally use these for components. I stapled cards with symbols and names because the terminology is complete foreign to student I am teaching. This is just as much an English class as an Electronics class.
In my case, I have a 10 year old Taiwanese boy that is ready to go and we will start next week.
I've sorted everything into baggies and put all and everything into a shoe box to which I've added a VOM. This shoe box approach may be adequate for one-on-one; but impossible in a class of 25. The baggies may just be a preliminary sketch of a way to eventually locate the right box with slots for all and everything - including spare 9 Volt batteries, the Homework board, and the USB to serial adapter.
Good order always helps the student notice details, messiness contributes to confusion and less learned.
The main observations are to have a good entry point that creates optimism, curiosity, and enthusiasm.
Do not just muddle you way into and through a book because you have never taught before. I have taught an awful lot of English Language Courses that have a very strong tradition similar to computing's 'Hello World' introduction.
And it generally is a bit too naive when the tradional is depended upon to make a good first impression.
(English courses start with "Hello, how are you? My name is XXXX. What is yours? -- How many times does one really need to review this?)
What the 'Hello World' does importantly do, is to verify that everything is operational and the student can begin. So it can't be skipped, but Andy Lindsay was wise enough to move quickly into using the beginning to demonstrate that the BasicStamp can extend that to being a 'talking' calculator. Another approach would be to simply change the "Hello World" message to something that tickles the audience's fancy - it could be any message that is just thrown back at you and amuses them. For giggly girls, it might be "Hello Kitty", and so on. Consider your audience and what keeps them engaged.
In any event, I think I am on my way. But I have some tedious preparation stuff to do for the sake of making the beginning fun. Today, it is printing out the 411 page Chinese WAM text so I can get a copy service to make 10 bound copies.
For a teacher, at the VERY minimum - there is one hour of preparation for one hour of class. And with a new course, it is easy to put 100 hours into preliminary work before you ever see a student. You have to read all the material, make a serious of lesson plans. Then you likely have to think about it all and revise the lesson plans. Finally, you get a really good idea of how to enter the first class. But after each class, the lesson plans are again subject to review and revision. In some cases, the pace is far too ambitious and has to be cut back to 50% of what one expected to achieve. That may be embarrassing, but going fast and teaching no one is far worse.
In other words, for a new course, the teacher lives from lesson to lesson with a lot of pondering about what can be done better in the next class and what is really working.
Use a small compartment boxes. The coloured ones are nice. And also, tell them not to put these little components in the mouth too!
Small parts are a safety issue. And they just keep getting smaller. So the best time to start with electronics may be after all the kids in the family are past that. It was never an issue in my family because I was the youngest.