About Problem-Solving with Bee-Bot
Problem-Solving with Bee-Bot uses Bee-Bot or Blue-Bot to teach problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Through a series of sequential challenges, students learn to direct Bee-Bot or Blue-Bot on increasingly complicated routes, which develops an understanding of programming, prediction, self-evaluation, and mapping in the process.
Problem-Solving with Bee-Bot is available online, complete with instructions, teaching tips, challenges, and supporting resources. All activities are available to students in the Bee-Bot Online Emulator, which run in any browser.
Problem-Solving with Bee-Bot is targeted at students in Grades 1 through 5. Challenges are based on a grid that takes advantage of Bee-Bot’s 90° turns. Initial exercises challenge students to develop simple routes for Bee-Bot and can be used with younger students. Subsequent exercises have more complicated routes tied to cartesian coordinates labeled on the grid, providing hands-on practice in understanding graphing and mapping. Additional challenges focus on prediction, logic, sequencing, and directions. Working together on challenges helps student develop communication and collaboration skills while testing their solutions with Bee-Bot provides a motivating experience in self-evaluation.
Click on the mat at the right to try one of the activities in the Bee-Bot Online Emulator.
Problem-Solving with Bee-Bot includes a teaching guide with instructions and objectives, plus 150 student challenges. Each challenge is self-contained with its goal and instructions on one page so you can easily print and distribute it to students. Students solve the challenge they are presented and then test their solution with Bee-Bot. Challenges are organized by type and level of difficulty, so teachers can match challenges to student experience and ability. Challenges that emphasize mapping, graphing, predicting, and sequencing are included along with a series of challenges that present increasingly complex Bee-Bot routes.
Use the Student Record Form to track the progress of each student’s journey though the challenges.
As the teaching guide states, some of the advantages of using a robot as a learning tool are:
- Making learning fun
- Problem-solving, critical thinking, and decision-making
- Individualized learning at the student’s pace
- Time Management and Organizational Skills
- Creative and Innovative Thinking
- Developing Self-Evaluation Skills
- Communication and Collaboration
- Programming and Communicating with Technology
- Sequencing
- Predicting Results Accurately
- Viewing the World in Spatial Terma
Problem-Solving with Bee-Bot was developed by Lester Carr, a 40-year public school veteran, who drew on broad experience introducing technology into the classroom to develop Problem-Solving with Bee-Bot. Bee-Bot’s simplicity and ease of use were an inspiration to develop challenges that put the motivation, excitement, and learning potential of robot technology into the hands of elementary school students.
Problem-Solving with Bee-Bot is available online where you may view and print the instructions, challenges, and supporting resources. A login code comes on the invoice and allows access to the curriculum for one year.
View a PDF copy of the Table of Contents
Click on the sample mat above to try out one of the challenges.
Try more sample lesson pages.
Licensed users can log in to Problem-Solving with Bee-Bot.