Faith Bongiorno started her teaching career as an “art-on-the-cart” educator. But that changed one day when her son told her that he wanted to participate in FIRSTⓇ LEGOⓇ League, a robotics program created through an alliance betweenFIRSTⓇ (For inspiration and recognition of science and technology) and LEGOⓇ Education. With keen curiosity, she introduced the program to the principal, worked to secure funding, and prepared to train the after-school program.
This newfound passion led Bongiorno to transition to teaching general technology in the classroom and, eventually, robotics. Now, she specializes in implementing full-time education for FIRST and he still works closely with several robotics teams in his area, including some senior high school students who were on his original team nine years ago. And, like other educators, she is working hard to keep children on the program engaged and safe from afar.
Bongiorno spoke to us about his experience with FIRST, STEM education and remote navigation instruction – as an educator and parent – during the COVID-19 pandemic.
EdSurge: What challenges are you seeing with remote learning?
Bongiorno: The first is engagement. Being an educator that effectively involves 30 children online is a challenge. For students, it is a challenge to feel comfortable and, as Brené Brown says, to be vulnerable and courageous to enter this arena.
Then there is a connection. We took our daughter back to face-to-face school because she was really struggling to connect with the teacher. She didn’t feel safe enough to ask the questions she needed to ask in order to understand the material being delivered. Connection is a challenge for students and educators, but also for parents. We are all trying to connect through a screen, and this can be an extremely difficult obstacle to overcome.
Another challenge we are dealing with is Internet access. We live in a rural area and our broadband is not always valid. With four children at home learning virtually, I have to plan who can be in which meeting because if we have more than two people online at the same time, broadband will be cut. How stressful is that for a student if he is learning virtually and his internet runs out?
Any silver lining?
When you are in the classroom, there are homework reminders, questionnaires, test reviews, etc. Now, children need to become more self-reliant to know when those dates are coming. This forced my older children to understand that they need to stay on top of things.
I am also seeing students start building their own little pods. In my daughter’s math class, the kids started a Discord channel. The teacher has nothing to do with it. Some of them get together to discuss what’s going on in the classroom and use the Google Whiteboard to share notes. Teachers are delighted that students are learning to self-facilitate and come to class with articulate questions.
O FIRST teams must also face some challenges. How are you keeping your motivated and engaged?
The teams I work with are virtual now – we have weekly meetings and are using Discord to keep us engaged. Children are thinking about initiatives. We really want children to have the ideas because that is the way to keep them engaged. When the kids think, “These are important things in my community now,” they start driving the bus. So, we’re just providing guidance.
Some of our children have grandiose ideas that we cannot execute now, but we can put them in the parking lot until we are back to normal. And we’re dealing with some students who are upset because there are no face-to-face robotics competitions, so we encourage them to come up with ideas that will keep them meaningful to them while remaining safe.
Another thing that we are seeing in FIRST it’s collaboration across programs. We have teams trying to help other teams virtually. My daughter took an online CAD course this summer, taught by a team in California. They shared it on our Facebook page and opened it to all of our FIRST free programs.
How are you doing FIRST teams innovating while trying to deal with what’s going on around them?
We had teams with access to 3D printers, printing PPE and taking them to local hospitals. A team designed a different type of mask holder for doctors that ended up being used at South Carolina Medical University in Charleston. The students examined what was out there and the needs of doctors in that particular unit and created something to meet those medical needs.
At the moment, most of the teams I’m working with are trying to examine the needs of the community – school supplies or access to technology for children at home; food shortages have sometimes arisen. Students are talking to friends and discovering that they do not have lunch at home and have no way of doing so. Some teams are analyzing homeless populations to see how they are keeping themselves safe during COVID.
We are still in the early stages of their projects, but they are really starting to look at the needs of their community.
Not everyone has access to FIRST in their schools, especially now. What kind of STEM features are available for use at home?
There are many resources, but one of the sites that I take friends and family with is FIRST At home. When COVID appeared, our education team knew immediately that we needed to make these resources available. We have classes that can be facilitated by parents with household items, which was an important factor in the design. We put other links in class and on the website for resources from places like the National Science Foundation, Carnegie Mellon, some of our teams and even some YouTube channels.
Do you have any advice for overworked parents who want to incorporate STEM into their children’s lives without increasing pressure?
Try to look at your world through the eyes of a 2 or 3 year old. Be curious rather than pressured when faced with something you don’t know. Consider cooking, for example. There are so many things you can learn by making a pie that are related to STEM, from fractions to logic and sequencing.
Think about it from a child’s perspective and find the magic of the world again. The reality is that you can meet your children’s needs by simply entering the field with them and watching what they are examining, helping them answer their questions and inspiring them to be curious.
That’s what I would say to parents: be curious about your children.
Keep curiosity alive at home and in class
FIRST was founded more than three decades ago to inspire young people to become leaders and innovators in science and technology, ready to solve the greatest challenges in the world – under the idea that, when inspiration happens, education follows. Today, their set of inclusive programs for the PreK-12 continues to help educators and parents arouse their students’ curiosity and develop the skills and confidence they need to build a better future.
All children need equal access to opportunities, relevant guidance and involvement to build a foundation for a bright future in an ever-changing world. Just as their robotics teams have innovated to help their communities during this challenging period, the team behind FIRST Programs has innovated to keep STEM inspiration and learning alive for all young people, including the development of free activities for home learning and tailored programs that can be carried out in learning environments.