Teacher Training By Dr. Diana Wehrell-Grabowski

Finished up the first of five days of STEM teacher training in Dugger, Indiana today. Eleven K-6 teachers were introduced to the foundation of STEM including the Engineering Design Process, reflective journaling, inquiry-based science, critical thinking, and more. We started off exploring patterns and shapes in nature and man-made objects then onto math and architecture. We finished off the day with beginning to build 3-D structures with readily available materials. As always it’s  a pleasure to meet motivated and dedicated teachers who are willing to think outside of the box. Looking forward to the next four days.

Interest in student robotics is on the rise thanks to the awareness of the need to introduce students to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines through hands-on, inquiry-based practices. From the early-childhood to the high-school STEM classroom, students can be seen exploring robotics in their classrooms, after-school robotic clubs, and competing in robotic competitions. With this wave of interest in robotics, children’s authors have produced a wide-selection of children’s literature with robot themes. During my STEM teacher training workshops teachers are introduced to children’s literature that make connections to the relevant STEM concepts being investigated, including robotics. For more information on the STEM teacher training workshops I offer you can view the STEM teacher training pdf  brochure here. Check out the following robotic books I recommend to introduce and reinforce robotics and technology concepts.  All the books are available from Amazon via this site at no extra charge. There’s a wide-variety of children’s literature with robotic themes both fiction and non-fiction based.