Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/1060790
I L E T T H E K I D S TA K E T H E L E A D. I T E L L T H E M TO B E F E A R L E S S I N T H E FAC E O F FA I L U R E . I A M L E A R N I N G S O M U C H F R O M M Y S T U D E N T S. T H E Y T E AC H M E N E W T H I N G S E V E RY DAY." Brandy Peters Tech educator levels the playing field Garden Grove Education Asso ciation hanks to Brandy Peters' efforts at Eisenhower Elementary School in Garden Grove, students are not only learning cod- ing and robotics, they 're contenders in an annual area competition. Peters, a fifth-grade teacher and school tech- nology coordinator, was once a student in Garden Grove Unified School District. She knows firsthand that students here can accom- plish great things. She started an after-school program two years ago — funded by a CTA Institute for Teaching grant — where students build and program robots. Since then she has expanded the program, Coding and Robotics to Empower and Inspire Students, making a special effort to include girls, who are under- represented in computer science. Much to her delight, the girls are thriving. Peters' goal is to close the digital divide so students can start preparing for high-paying careers in the tech industry. T Eisenhower has a predominantly Latino and low-in- come population, and many students may lack access to technology at home. Schools must level the playing field, she says. "We have a number of students who are home- less or are living in multifamily apartments, but our kids have amazed everyone with the gifts they have for coding and robotics." This year there are two after-school robotics teams. In addition, Peters coordinates computer coding throughout the school day on Thursdays with colleagues. The lower grades build and program Dash and Dot robots. Fourth-graders build and program Lego EV3 Mindstorms robots. Fifth-graders learn Amazon Alexa programming skills — including creating voice commands. Sixth-graders code computers in Python — the same program used by NASA. It would never have happened without collab- oration. Peters initially sought help from Jason Chong, a teacher on special assignment in the Fullerton School District (FSD) and a member of the Fullerton Elementary Teachers Association. He connected her with Richard Woo, executive director of Cod.ED, who volunteers along with other Cod.ED staff to teach robotics and pro- gramming to Orange County students, with free professional development for teachers. He and his employees volunteer at Eisen- hower on Thursdays. Recently the school decided to create an AP Computer Science class for sixth-graders, which is essentially the same class that high school students take for college credit, and Cod.Ed will be assisting teachers with that, too. The programs are having a pos- itive impact; Peters believes it's no coincidence that students' test scores have gone up since they started robotics and coding. She Peters with students Julian Perez and Mayte Lopez. 27 D E C E M B E R 2 018 / J A N U A R Y 2 019