Coding as a Bridge

The Beyond STEM: The Development of Virtues in Early Childhood Education Through Robotics project — funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation — explores these questions by working with faith-based and secular kindergarten classrooms in Boston, United States and Buenos Aires, Argentina.The program utilizes the KIBO robotics kit designed for young children aged 4-7 years old by the DevTech Research Group and commercialized by KinderLab Robotics. 

Here is a video that tells the story of the project and shows both teacher’s and children’s resulting robotics projects. Here is a website displaying the final robotic projects created by the different kindergarten classrooms.

Here is a blog written by teachers in one of the participating schools.

This project utilizes the curriculum “Our Treasure: A KIBO Coding Curriculum for Emergent Readers”, one of the many curriculum units developed by the DevTech Research Group to teach robotics, coding and computational children to young children. For the final robotic project children create the treasures representing different aspects of their school and set out in a KIBO treasure hunt to collect them and showcase what is special and unique about their school to others.

The curriculum also integrates the use of storytelling. Two different versions were used. In Buenos Aires, the curriculum was centered on the song Hay Un Balde En El Fondo De La Mar (Spanish Version, English Version). In Boston, around the children’s book, There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly by Simms Taback (English Version).

Both of these curricular units focus on sequencing and engage children in recreating the popular book and song by programming KIBO robotics, as way to introduce computational thinking skills and coding concepts. The Coding as Another Language, curriculum, was developed based on lessons learned during the experiences of piloting these units .

The project was led by the Principal Investigator, Prof. Marina Umaschi Bers, professor at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, formerly at Tufts University, and head of the DevTech Research Group. 

Since the project involves working with interfaith groups, an advisory board composed of experts in the field of education with a strong grounding on their own respective faiths provides invaluable guidance both designing the intervention and analyzing data.

The advisory board is formed by:

Dr. Ziva Hassenfeld, an Assistant Professor of Jewish education at Brandeis University. She earned her doctorate from the Stanford University Graduate School of Education in Curriculum and Teacher Education and did a postdoc at the DevTech Research Group at Tufts University. Besides literacy research she has extensive background in studying, teaching, and researching the learning of Jewish sacred texts.

Dr. Mona Abo Zena, is an Assistant Professor in Early Childhood Education and Care, College of Education and Human Development at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her research focuses on the role of religion and spiritual development (broadly defined) as a way of knowing and being and as a particular cultural fund of knowledge that affects learning and development. Her work is informed by over 20 years of teaching, administrative, and board experiences in P-16 educational contexts.

Dr. Frank DeVito, the Education Director and Co-Founder of Equity Lab Charter School. Equity Lab is a project-based learning school where students use an equity-centered design process to problem-solve challenges in their communities. He was also a candidate for the Roman Catholic priesthood and studied at the Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome, Italy. 

In Argentina, the program coordinator is Valeria Larrart. Valeria is an elementary school educator who specializes in new learning technologies, STEAM and making activities. She holds a license in educational technologies and is co-founder of iLAB and Edumakers. 

The participating schools in Boston are: Jewish Community Day School; Al Bustan at Malik Academy, Our Lady’s Academy, and the Eliot-Pearson Children’s School.

The participating schools in Buenos Aires are: Escuela Comunitaria Arlene Fern, Colegio Rey Fahd, Colegio Cardenal Copello, JIN E DE 17 Juana Manso, and Colegio Cardenal Copello.

Here is a video that tells the story of the project and shows both teacher’s and children’s resulting robotics projects. Here is a website displaying the final robotic projects created by the different kindergarten classrooms.

The MEET KIBO – Jerusalem project is a partnership between the DevTech Research Group with MEET (Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow) and the Jerusalem International YMCA (more info here). In this project, teenage alumni of MEET, a multiyear program for Israeli and Palestinian high school students to study computer science and entrepreneurship together, are teaching KIBO robotics to kindergarten students at the Jerusalem International YMCA. The project is exploring questions of how a coding environment can serve as a bridge across ages, nationalities, and languages.

This project utilizes the Coding as Another Language KIBO curriculum for Kindergarten. The curriculum integrates storytelling, play, songs, and games to teach robotics, coding and computational children to young children. Children create multiple KIBO projects over the course of the curriculum, including retelling story books and creating dances using the KIBO robotics platform. The curriculum is taught in both Arabic and Hebrew.

The project is lead by the Principal Investigator, Prof. Marina Umaschi Bers, professor at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, formerly at Tufts University, and head of the DevTech Research Group. 

Tess Levinson, a Doctoral Research Assistant in the DevTech Research Group, is the Boston College project coordinator. She is a PhD student in Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology at the Lynch School of Education.

In the region, the local project coordinator is Loai Qubti. Loai is the Computer Science Curriculum Lead at MEET, Mustafa Hussein is the Student Program Director of MEET and Yaniv Sagee is the CEO of MEET.

Rawan Sabbah Munayer is the on-site coordinator at the Jerusalem International YMCA.

Dr. Zvi Bekerman is a project advisor. He teaches anthropology of education at the School of Education, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is a faculty member at the Mandel Leadership Institute in Jerusalem.