One of my favorite ways to build bulletin boards in my classroom was to set the context for a project and then leave open space to add students’ work or words throughout the project. When it comes to coding and robotics, Bug Boards are a great way to do this!
A Bug Board is a way to capture and celebrate bugs in student’s code. The basic idea is that students can document the bug they found in their code and how they fixed it. They could do this with a journal page, with a bug shaped cut out writing paper, or even a photo with a caption!
When talking about this idea with educators at a conference recently, one educator built on this simple idea in a beautiful way that I wanted to share. Taking inspiration from The Very Hungry Caterpillar, he was thinking about how to help his middle and high school students think about their bugs in the context of the larger challenge they were seeking to accomplish, and said
“I wonder if I could have each group capture a bug and their solution on like a caterpillar type bug document. Then, at the conclusion of the challenge, turn that into a butterfly and write about how that bug helped them to solve the challenge as a whole.”
I LOVED this idea so much. The great thing about capturing bugs in this way is that it honors the process of learning, and shows students that they all can learn from their mistakes in positive ways. Bugs are reasons to celebrate learning - and this idea takes that even a step further!
Do you have a Bug Board in your classroom? How do you help students to capture moments of problem solving in your classroom? Could you see yourself trying out this idea? Please share your Bug Boards, or ideas, and if you try this one - show how it’s going!
