Exploring Extracurricular Opportunities: Mentoring Teacher Candidates in a University Robotics Club
摘要
This chapter explores an extracurricular robotics club in a teacher-education program as another way to mentor teacher candidates and to alleviate nervousness around teaching robotics and coding. The perspectives of nine robotics club members in two academic years (2022–2023 and 2023–2024) were collected via three focus groups. The robotics club provided opportunities for members to play with robotics and coding through structured and unstructured activities at the university. Also, members practiced teaching robotics through visits to local schools along with the professors they worked with in the university-based club. Teacher candidates’ experiences with the club are discussed in categories of professional (competence), personal (confidence), and social (belonging) development. We conclude with recommendations for teacher-education programs to explore mentoring opportunities that informal extracurricular clubs like this may provide.