The researchers came up with the idea. The researchers were at the stadium watching their kids play. During their discussion, they came up with this idea. 

Yes, we provide the students and teacher's a fitness tracker called Mi Band. The students track their data on excel file and show their improvement at the showcase. We are also developing an online leaderboard where all the students and teachers can view their fitness data online and compete against each other.

Barriers: There are ways to acquire the technology at reduced costs, and we’ll share ideas for doing so at our ISTE workshop in late June. We are also working on developing educational resources for non-TECHFIT participants to be able to use to learn how to employ the technology and software for exergame innovation. Because the program combines multiple subjects together, it’s important to gain support from the school administration to assign compatible schedules for the teachers who will lead the program and to make appropriate facilities (PC lab, gym) available to the teachers and students.

 

Curricular units: We’ve had schools that offered TECHFIT in school as an elective class. The implementations varied, but the ones that seemed to work the best were team taught by teachers of  different subjects in which each teacher contributed instruction based on his/her strength/subject area(s). Having a PE teacher to lead the fitness parts helped, but wasn’t required because we direct teachers to online resources to help lead fitness activities. Likewise, having a CTE teacher aids in the CTE instruction, but we’ve had many teacher teams that had no CTE teacher, but they were able to successfully deliver the CTE aspects of TECHFIT. We even had a math teacher who changed her career focus to CTE after her TECHFIT experience. We just had a meeting yesterday with a subset of our best teachers, and two of them shared their plans to teach TECHFIT content in their respective classes: science and humanities. Math would also be a great fit for using TECHFIT-based modules to make the learning more engaging with practical physical applications. Next year, we’ll be developing modules for specific classes based on appropriate elements in TECHFIT.

We are currently building on TECHFIT to offer it in three contexts: afterschool, in-school elective class, modules in core classes. We’ve had schools that offered TECHFIT in school as an elective class. The implementations varied, but the ones that seemed to work the best were team taught by teachers of  different subjects in which each teacher contributed instruction based on his/her strength/subject area(s). We just had a meeting yesterday with a subset of our best teachers, and two of them shared their plans to teach TECHFIT content in their respective classes: science and humanities. Math would also be a great fit for using TECHFIT-based modules to make the learning more engaging with practical physical applications.

Our observations of students from school visits and at the showcase made it apparent that students were developing CT skills through their TECHFIT experiences. They were excellent problem solvers who employed two organization tools, Scratch and nanoNavigator, to design and implement physical, automated systems that employed I/O electronic components that they wired to a PLC. However, the instruments for TECHFIT were not designed to measure CT skills development. Another (NSF STEM+C) grant funded in fall 2016 that builds on TECHFIT will be developing instruments to assess development of CT skills when offering TECHFIT in three different contexts: afterschool, in school class, and modules in specific classes. At that time, we will be able to identify the level of CT skills development through each of the 3 contexts.

We have observed that many students are very surprised and excited when they realize how they helped build a technology-supported exergame. It gives them a boost of confidence in their capability to work and develop things using technology. They describe the experience as fun (in an unexpected way), suggesting that we are changing misconceptions about the nature of STEM and people who work in STEM. For example, in December 2015, a local TV station did a story about a local school's TECHFIT experience. The news piece included a young lady who said she didn't know what she wanted to do before TECHFIT, but the experience helped her decide that she wanted to become a programmer. When our staff was preparing to create the video for this NSF video Showcase, they interviewed her and learned that she only signed up for TECHFIT because her mom made her do it. Now she will be pursuing a STEM field because TECHFIT raised her awareness and interest.
We agree that pre/post surveys may not accurately depict long lasting impact. That's one reason why we include a survey that cannot be administered until at least 3 months have passed, but it's usually closer to 5 months. It presents a challenge to us in reconnecting with the students, but we've been fairly successful in getting most of them to respond, and the feedback is overwhelming positive.

From our observations, TECHFIT students have become excellent problem solvers through using two TECHFIT tools, Scratch and nanoNavigator. Furthermore, they use these tools to design and implement physical, automated systems that employ electronic components such as lights, push buttons, and sensors that they wire to a PLC. Their games involve decision-making logic with loops, random numbers, timers, counters, mathematical computations, etc. Although the current instruments for TECHFIT were not designed to measure CT skills development, it is definitely happening. Fortunately, another (NSF STEM+C) grant funded in fall 2016 builds on TECHFIT. A primary outcome will be developing validated instruments to assess development of CT skills, and these instruments will be used to gauge CT skills development when offering TECHFIT in one of three different contexts: afterschool, in school class, and modules in specific classes. Through this new grant, we will be able to identify the level of CT skills development in each of the 3 contexts.

We provide the students with a technology toolkit which contains controller and different types of sensor. The students develop a game concept and use the toolkit to detect ducks, jumps (using sensors) and keep scores. The teams are also provided with Kinect and they use it to program games.  Recently, one of her schools developed a game similar to maze runner. They designed a life-size maze and had various sensors hooked up to detect the gamer's activities.