This week, I met with my mentor, met with Professor Darryl Thomas from Western Oregon University for an informational interview, and continued working on a lesson plan for a Drone Dance workshop.
MEETING WITH MY MENTOR
During our meeting this week, my mentor Victor Villegas taught me about the physics of how quadcopters work. I included information about how drones fly in the curriculum that I am working on, and hearing from my mentor about how drones worked helped me to better understand the content that I was putting into my lesson plan.
MEETING WITH PROFESSOR DARrYL THOMAS
I also had the amazing opportunity to meet with Professor Thomas this week. He is a Professor of Dance and Theatre at Western Oregon University (WOU). In addition to teaching classes at WOU, he has also created many lessons through the Mid-Valley STEM-CTE Hub including Code Can Dance lesson videos for STEM Week 2021 and Drone Dancing Summer Camps.
During the interview, I asked him some questions about his experiences with creating dance-related STEAM workshops in the past and also received helpful suggestions for what my workshop lesson plan so far. He helped me identify some of the computer science standards that my lesson plan worked with. His feedback also brought my attention to things that I needed to think about a lot more, such as providing teachers with instructions on how to work with drones (such as having a place for students switch out their drone batteries when they run out and establishing a protocol for students if propellers happen to come off their drones). He made some recommendations for things to change in some of my writing, such as using more concrete examples and fewer abstract ones to make the lesson packet more kid-friendly, as well as including more drone safety suggestions that I had not originally thought about.
It was really helpful to get feedback from someone who has had a lot of past experience creating lesson plans and working with Tello drones. I was really grateful for the chance to be able to talk with Professor Thomas.
CONTINUING TO WORK ON MY LESSON PLAN
After the interview, I continued working on my lesson plan both by adding on to the draft I started last week as well as adding and changing things based on Professor Thomas’s suggestions. Here is the link to my lesson plan draft so far.
After meeting with Professor Thomas, I ended up having some questions that I wanted to ask my mentor about the next time we meet. The first thing I wanted to ask about was if I should put a recommendation about how many Tello drones and batteries teachers should obtain if they want to do the lesson plan. I was hoping that my lesson plan could be usable by any teacher who might want to use it (not just a lesson plan that is can only be carried out exclusively by an organization that provides the drones and batteries, for example), but having limited numbers of these could be something that makes it hard for the lesson plan to be accessible to anyone who wants to use it.
The second thing that I wanted to ask about was if I should explain in the lesson plan how certain computer science standards (for grades 6-8) are met by the curriculum. There were a couple of standards that could be met by my lesson plan, but I was not sure how apparent they could be to someone unless I included additional explanation. I also was wondering if I should include more guidance to the instructor who would be teaching the lesson or if the information that I have written for the instructor (which is currently just the lesson plan outline with a list of the standards met by the lesson) could be more specific or include more guidance.
GOALS FOR NEXT WEEK
This coming week, I will be meeting with my mentor again, and I look forward to sharing the progress on my lesson plan so far. I also plan on continuing to work on my lesson plan during the week. In addition to continuing to make edits and revisions, I want to work on formatting to make it more kid-friendly (such as working with spacing and possibly adding more pictures) and getting started on the PowerPoint presentation that will go along with the lesson plan.
