TABLE13: NSF Funded “Birds and BOTS”: A Partnership to Improve Math Learning with Robotics

The panel consists of team members that implemented a four year NSF Funded grant (ITEST award #2147699) that showed significant improvements in math scores and engagement specifically for special education students. Our grant consisted of 12 elementary school teachers from two public schools in Brooklyn NY, researchers from Columbia University’s Teachers College, Ed Tech mentors that supported teaching in classrooms and in professional development workshops. For the past 4 years, we have worked closely together to co-design, test and implement curriculum involving robotics and math to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics for students in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. Teachers, researchers and Ed. Tech implementers worked side by side to design and test a series of short robotic activities that supported lessons from Illustrative Math Curriculum and Eureka Math Curriculum Units. Our panel will include: teachers, researchers and Ed. Tech mentors. We will share the results of the project and will address our perspectives on implementation of a multi year, multi goal program. We will address: How do you keep teachers motivated and involved? How do you write compelling activities that further math learning using robotics? What did the research results reveal?