How can teachers get students’ attention and motivation easily?

Learning processes in school might seem old and boring, both for teachers and students. In a world where keywords such as innovation and STEAM skills are everywhere, the challenge arises: How can we stay up to date with the latest knowledge gaps for the younger generations? How can we prepare the kids for an employment market where the requirements are constantly adapting to the newest tech releases?

We don’t yet have a solution to fit all the educational institutions’ pain points, but we do have several action plans that will reshape the way teaching STEM skills is approached.

Let’s start with competitions!

Research shows that competitions encourages students to work harder, study further and in the process – boost their confidence. When competitions are being organised in the classroom, the students are far more focused on outperforming their rivals, but most important: they start with outperforming themselves! Group competitions encourage teamwork while individual competitions nurture soft skills.

And it’s not always about winning, competitions are mostly about the energy & spirit that enhance its benefits. While winning gives the adrenaline, happiness and motivation, losing is the best teacher – it allows students to further develop and research intro way of getting better and wiser – therefore, winning next time! Moreover, that’s when the teacher plays an incredible role – the one of a mentor, whose presence will guide and encourage students to look further into the issue and don’t give up!

Competitions, if managed correctly, have an amazing outcome for both teachers and students and are also a great way to switch the boring curriculum lessons to engaging activities that develop more than hard skills!

Fable Spin Football Tournament

With all these reasons in mind, we put together an activity sheet specially designed to challenge your students’ coding skills, creativity and innovation.

First, start off with dividing the students into an equal number of teams taking into consideration the number of Spin Modules the class owns.

Our recommendation would be to have groups of 2-5 students for each team.

After setting up the teams, you need to decide which coding option comes first. Our advice is to organise three different phases, one for each coding option provided. Therefore, each team gets the chance to code Fable Spin using three different programming options. 

IDEA! Top 2 teams are challenged to play one final round of Spin Football and to control Spin using another coding option. No clue what to use? How about Follow the Leader? How about trying to code Spin in Python directly? If you’re running Fable Blockly on a PC/ Mac you can easily switch to the Python Editor by pressing the last icon from the menu bar.

What do you need to set the Tournament in motion?

• One Fable Spin module for each team competing in the Tournament
• One Smartphone holder for each Fable Spin
• One Smartphone with Fable Face App installed and running
• One Fable Hub for each Fable Spin module
• One castor wheel and one plow per module to assure the stability of Fable Spin

Optional: 

• A Construction Bundle for each Fable Spin Module to build your own Fable Spin Robot
• Creativity BOOST – Get two empty cardboard boxes and build your own Football Goals – no rules implied! 

Do you want to discover the instructions, coding options and tournament rules? Download the activity sheet here! 

Don’t forget to share with us on Social Media videos & images from your Tournament using #FableSpinFootballTournament