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From dropping off materials to Zoom lessons to disinfecting everything, it’s a logistical and pedagogical challenge, but teaching kids to collaborate creatively is worth it.

At Big Learning, an afterschool program serving 2,500 students annually in more than 60 schools across Montgomery County, MD, we offer a variety of subjects, including an eight-week Science & Engineering track geared towards pre-K–5. Prior to the pandemic, we offered six or seven different robotics cohorts, totaling 50 to 65 students a session, in addition to our programs in pure science.

Of course, things have been different in our current distance learning reality, especially when it comes to teaching hands-on robotics. We can only support one cohort at a time, so our cap is 14 students. To take into account the logistics of Zoom, each meeting is 75 minutes instead of just an hour. We’ve also compressed the schedule, so our first cohort met 10 times over five weeks, with kids assigned challenges to work on between meetings. Bringing hands-on learning to our students’ homes has been a logistical challenge, but we think it’s worth it. Here’s how we’re continuing to pursue our mission of inspiring and encouraging creativity, persistence, communication, and collaboration.

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