Dr. Mary Bonnetty and Markie Belmodis

Bonnetty’s and Belmodis’ creative project, “Code, Connect, Belong: Building Attendance Through Robotics,” is designed to promote students’ growth mindsets, academic learning, vocabulary development, social and emotional learning, cooperative development, and cognitive skill sets through coding and programming educational activities derived from differentiated and project-based learning, with a literacy-based multidisciplinary approach using Dash Robotics and Scratch Programming. Simultaneously, they believe it will help improve school attendance and reduce chronic absenteeism at Leihoku Elementary School. According to the teaching duo, research demonstrates that student engagement and a sense of belonging are critical factors in improving attendance, so they think by integrating high-interest, hands-on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) activities like Dash Robotics and Scratch Programming, they will create an environment where students are motivated to come to school. Bonnetty and Belmodis believe that when students experience success, collaboration and meaningful learning through engaging projects, they develop intrinsic motivation and feel valued as members of the school community. They say the Voya grant will be used to purchase eight Dash robots with accessories, Make Wonder subscriptions, one Geyer Instructional Wonder Workshop Basic mat for coding challenges and Gripper Building Kits.