2023 Kansas City National Conference

October 25-28, 2023

All sessions added to My Agenda prior to this notice have been exported to the mobile app and will be visible in your account when the app launches. Any sessions added now, will also have to be added in the app.
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FILTERS APPLIED:6 - 8, Hands-On Workshop, Leadership and Advocacy, Computer Science

 

Rooms and times subject to change.
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Bite-Size STEM

Saturday, October 28 • 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM

Kansas City Convention Center - 2103 B


STRAND: STEM Haven

Show Details

STEM can be intimidating content for teachers to implement within their classrooms. Many teachers feel that they don’t have the time to do “extra” activities with state testing and making sure all standards are assessed. However, STEM can be a tool to engage students in the science standards and be a vehicle to help make sense out of the concepts they are learning. In this session, participants will explore projects in which students incorporate engineering and basic coding - no experience necessary. We will use micro:bit technology to connect basic coding commands to develop solutions for real-world environmental issues. All projects can be completed in 45 minutes or less; a perfect way to introduce or extend a lesson while exposing students to fundamental STEM skills. Projects include the following concepts: urban heat islands, energy efficiency, and biodiversity of an ecosystem.

TAKEAWAYS:
Expose your students to STEM skills through short, easy, and engaging STEM activities that can be completed in a single class period.

SPEAKERS:
Brad Posnanski (Comsewogue High School: Port Jefferson Station, NY), Jessica Kohout (Educational Consultant: Ellicott City, MD)

Computational Thinking Guided by Artificial Intelligence

Saturday, October 28 • 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Kansas City Convention Center - 2204



(Only registered attendees may view session materials. Please login with your NSTA account to view.)
Platform to create with guidance from AI
Video demo of the platform
Learn to create and think like a computer scientist, guided with real-time feedback from artificial intelligence.

STRAND: Tech Tools

Show Details

Although most people do not know a programming language, nearly everyone can read and write. The exposition of plain English text forms a critical part of logically explaining a set of operations and instructions, which are foundational to computational thinking and coding. The learning of programming concepts, such as cause-and-effect, abstraction, logical reasoning, etc., will be explored through each example exercise during the session. We will write a number of games together, guided by artificial intelligence, where each can be completed in just 10 minutes or less! The platform will automatically convert the text into a playable game. Games are engaging learning tools and are perfect for teaching many subject areas. The session will be divided as follows: 1. How to describe a game in English via Setting and Plot. 2. Basic game construct. 3. Pong-like games. 4. Space Invaders. 5. Mario-like games. 6. More complex variables/attributes. 7. Debugging. 8. Sharing games. 9. How to use Online Tutorials.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn to: clearly articulate programming concepts, think like a programmer, relate various aspects of each sentence to computational concepts and constructs, apply lessons to various subjects.

SPEAKERS:
Michael Hsiao (Virginia Tech: Blacksburg, VA)

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