Dr. Woodie Flowers on the Future of Education

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Woodie Flowers and all he has done for FIRST Robotics.  He has a unique and interesting perspective on education , which I think deserves a view here.  Some of what he says though isn't consistent.  He says we should have automated and adaptive software to teach subjects - fair enough, but he also says we shouldn't teach to a test or evaluate students based on multiple choice. Most of the adaptive software I've seen needs an assessment to determine if the learner has learned before they move on to the next subject. What does he propose to replace that? Not much really.

Similarly he indicates we should use big data to evaluate teacher performance and teaching best practices and apply them across the board.  Again though - to use big data to make these sorts of projections and assumptions the data must be gathered in the first place - benchmark data, progress data, effectivity data and demographic data.  All things that require some sort of testing and evaluation to determine how well people are learning, and what is actually working.

I would love to see his proposed non-test way of gathering the data required to make these kinds of analysis - truly - because if he can do that he's invented something VERY valuable.

Boycott the Democrat and Chronicle

Recently a local FIRST Lego League team received international attention for their achievements - getting the international gracious professionalism award at the World Championships for FIRST in St. Louis.  This team - with mentors from team 340 (GRR) and sponsored to go to World Championships by Team 1511 (Penfield Robotics) received recognition in WIRED magazine for their achievement.
 

So you'd think - wow - international attention, international media - local middle school kids, this is what proves Rochester is an innovative, forward-thinking city.  This kind of news is something that everyone in Rochester can be proud of.  Not to mention that outside of the Michigan area we have one of the largest FIRST populations for a city our size.  And that our teams consistently win Robot awards, Engineering Inspiration and Chairman's awards outside the area, and multiple regional teams repeatedly qualify for world competitions at both the FLL and FRC levels.  Sounds worthy of some serious features in the local news right?  Perhaps a feature article on the team, and on the other teams that supported and nurtured them. Or maybe one on how the FIRST Robotics competition inspires thousands of local elementary, middle and high school students to new achievements in STEM? 

But the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, our local newspaper, continues to ignore FIRST Robotics, and other equally deserving events such as Odyssey of the Mind, ImagineRIT and Science Olympiad. They claim that such events aren't "interesting to their readers" and don't "Follow their demographics".  (Actual quotes from D&C mouthpieces).  Never mind that local television stations enthusiastically promote and feature FIRST Robotics, and they have the same demographics.  They claim they support FIRST but only do so with advertisements, not with any coverage to speak of.  Even the results of the local Regional competition weren't published in their paper (however results of chess clubs, soccer, baseball, football, and basketball are covered ad nauseum).  It's not a matter of them not knowing either - all the local teams do press releases and FIRST itself features PR to them regularly - but they continue to ignore it.

When I personally called attention to this continued ignorance - they banned my Facebook profile from commenting on articles - without an explanation. I didn't violate their terms of service (I specifically avoided situations that would get me banned) but they terminated my access to making comments on the site anyway - because when it came down to it - they had no valid explanation for why they continued to ignore FIRST Robotics.  In a similar fashion they refused to cover the RIT Innovation Festival ImagineRIT.

Recently the D&C is promoting a price raise to "allow them" to offer a digital subscription.  If you are an intellectual and thoughtful Rochester resident I strongly recommend that instead of renewing at their higher rate - you cancel your subscription.  And in doing so explain that you cannot in good conscience give them MORE money for LESS coverage of important events like FIRST Robotics in the city.  Subscribe to the NY Times for important news outside Rochester, and the Rochester Business Journal or City Magazine for important inside Rochester news.

So proud of the 1511 team

Team 1511 brings home the World Championship Judges Award

With a 5 wins, 2 losses record, Rolling Thunder Penfield Robotics team ended up seeded 12th out of 88 in our division, no one is quite sure why we weren’t picked up by one of the top 8 seeded teams for the elimination rounds, but it just didn’t work out for us. Nevertheless our robot and drive team did an awesome and quite commendable job! We had zero mechanical failures on the field, and the pit crew aided by an excellent design, did an outstanding job of keeping things up and running. The drive team was equally commendable on both their outstanding offensive and excellent defensive strategy. Aided by the strong and dedicated scouting team they assisted their alliance in defeating the only remaining undefeated robot in the Newton division in our final qualification match, pinning the top robot and preventing it from scoring effectively. Everyone worked to put together a season, a team and a robot they could be proud of. As you all know our eventual goal is to become a World Champion Chairman’s Award team. Our presentation team, our pit crew, and the entire team spent the weekend showing the judges and the rest of FIRST that we are eligible to be represented at the championship level (we won the regional Chairman’s award in Chesapeake). This year’s Chairman’s award was won by Team 236, an awesome team out of Connecticut, but the judges saw our excellent performance, saw what a solid, student-built robot we’d created, listened to what our presentation team said, read our essay, viewed our video, talked to our mentors and evaluated our overall performance as a team. FIRST awarded us a special Judges Award for being an “all-year, all-around team that exemplifies the standards and visions of FIRST.” This is an awesome achievement, and our first World Championship award since winning the World Championship Rookie All-Star in 2005. The team is understandably excited and proud to be bringing this achievement back to Rochester, NY – the only Upstate New York team to bring an award home from the World Championships besides a divisional finalist team from our area – 1507 from Lockport, NY (they were on the winning alliance for our Division (Newton) but were eliminated in the semi-finals on the Einstein field). Those of you who are parents on the team should be proud of your son’s or daughter’s achievement. This is an award given out only to teams that the Judges recognize as being head and shoulders above the rest of the WORLD. There were 350 teams in Atlanta from all over the world. Only 2 were selected for Judges awards this year. You know how hard they all worked on the team, and that this is the result of their dedication and sacrifice. Those of you who are sponsors should know that your contribution of time or dollars has helped make us the highly successful team we are today, and that your team has gotten international recognition for its efforts. Those of you who are mentors already know what a great group of kids we had this year, and I know you are proud of them all. Kim O’Toole, the team leader, deserves special recognition for her dedication, vision, and unfailing belief in the students. While the kids accomplished the tasks it was Kim’s vision that created the team direction. Excellent job, and now we look forward to having an even better year in 2010. Thank you for your support over the last year. Cheers, Lee Drake, Business Team Mentor, Team 1511 for more information about Penfield robotics visit our award winning website at: http://www.penfieldrobotics.com/

Penfield Robotics team - 1511 Rolling Thunder - featured in Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

http://tinyurl.com/6oq5q4 Calvin is in all three photos somewhere :) Thanks to Mark and Jen for an excellent story and great pictures! OS-Cubed, Inc. is a proud sponsor of Rolling Thunder!