Bringing the breadth of computer science to middle schools
Proceedings of the 43rd ACM technical symposium on Computer Science Education
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Through an ongoing collaboration among Mississippi State's Swalm School of Chemical Engineering, the College of Education and Fifth Street Middle School in Westpoint, Mississippi, pre-service mathematics teachers and "at-risk" middle school students come together to focus on learning STEM concepts in an innovative way using LEGO robotics. A key feature of this project is the highly visual approach to teaching and studying STEM concepts. The current phase of the project is directed toward "at risk" middle school students-students whose performance on assessments indicates a strong likelihood of their failure or discontinuance from school. Pre-service teachers participate in completing lesson planning and execution coupled with service-learning by delivering the lessons to middle school students. The collaboration between the university and K-12 faculty members AND across disciplinary boundaries (i.e. engineering and education) provides a unique opportunity to bring innovative approaches to the K-12 classroom.