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Hi Linda, I really like the use of pair work to spot a specific mistake in the AI’s maths problems. Instead of just telling the children AI makes mistakes, you are turning them into detectives who have to actively prove where AI went wrong. Children tend to think computers are always right so by showing them a maths problem where the AI got the final answer wrong because of a mistake in its steps, you are teaching them critical evaluation in a very concrete way. An extension for the children might be writing their own tricky maths problem specifically designed to trick the AI and see what AI comes up with.
Class Stage: Multi-class 3rd to 6th Class, working in pairs (mixing older and younger pupils if possible).
Lesson Plan: AI Fact Checking with Leaves
Curriculum Area & Learning Intention: Science and Digital Learning. Pupils will learn to question information generated by AI about the natural world and check whether it is accurate.
AI Concept: AI tools can produce very convincing descriptions of plants and animals, but these answers can easily contain mistakes or mix up details.
The Activity: I would bring in a few common local leaves that the class has already studied e.g., Oak or Sycamore. I give each group of children a short, highly confident paragraph written by an AI identifying and describing the leaves. I would deliberately leave in a few major AI mistakes. The children would work together using nature guidebooks, school library books, or trusted wildlife websites to fact-check the AI’s claims.
Critical Question: Is information from AI always correct?
The children will learn that they must never copy and paste AI descriptions directly into their science or geography work without checking at least one other trusted source first.
Evidence of Learning: The worksheet showing the childrens written corrections.
I am not very familiar with Minecraft either, I completely agree that picking a highly structured world like Hour of AI: The First Night is a good choice to keep things manageable.
One feature I really liked from your lesson is having the pupils train the AI Agent. I think it supports your STEM and computational thinking link perfectly. Instead of the pupils just running around playing the game, they actually have to stop, look for patterns, and use logic to teach the Agent what to do.
I also think your plan to slow the pace down and pause after each task is a great idea. As a practical suggestion, you could give the pupils a simple ‘Agent Log’ worksheet. When you pause the game, they could quickly write down one mistake the Agent made and how they fixed it. This would give them a visual record of their debugging process.
For my demo lesson, I chose CyberSafe: Bad Connection?. It’s an online safety game that deals with an important topic: digital citizenship and staying safe from online manipulation. As you play, you meet a stranger who starts trying to trick you into sharing personal info and meeting up offline. It’s a great way to show children how people can manipulate others online.
Learning Objectives: Children learn to spot digital ‘red flags’, practice setting boundaries, know when to block/report, and understand that what you post online stays online.
Associated Resources: It comes with an Educator Guide, sentence frames to help kids say no, and offline printable cards for the children.
This maps perfectly to the SPHE curriculum for 5th and 6th Class, especially under the ‘Myself and the wider world’ strand. It gives the children a safe space to practice resisting peer pressure and handling sketchy online situations without real-world danger. While the game itself is great, I would definitely modify how I run it in class. Because the topics are quite heavy, it could easily make some pupils uncomfortable. I wouldn’t just let them play through it on their own. I would go through it with them, talking about what is happening as a whole group, make sure everyone is okay before moving on.
Hi Felicity, I really liked your game. It perfectly supports your SPHE curriculum link and game objective because it visually shows kids that a balanced diet isn’t just about eating fruit.
Since your game objective is about identifying healthy choices, maybe you could add a distracting food item that drops down, like a donut or a fizzy drink sprite. You could program it so that if the player accidentally catches it, they lose a point or some time off the clock.
Game Type: Chaser
Game Title: Cat & Mouse!
Game Link: https://makecode.com/_CxvPae9xt3Ht
Curriculum Area: STEM
Learning Objective: Children will use the design process to test their game, find where it is too hard or too easy, and change the code settings until it is fun and balanced to play.
Location: A white kitchen floor
Player: A cat sprite controlled by the directional pad.
Game Elements: A mouse sprite that constantly moves around the screen.
How to Play: The player must move the cat around the screen with only 10 seconds to catch the mouse to score points. If the cat doesn’t catch the mouse within the time limit, it’s game over.
While making this, I had to use debugging. At first, my mouse sprite was moving and the cat stayed in the one place. When I had that bug fixed, I realised the timeframe to catch the mouse was not enough. To fix this, I had to look closely at my code blocks and adjust accordingly.
This tutorial is fantastic for introducing the concept of a loop and sequencing. It really helps the children understand that the micro:bit reads code in an exact order and then starts all over again. It’s a great visual way to show them how coding logic works. To tie it even closer to your STEM lessons, you could bring in a really nice Science link based on the human body. After the children code the flashing heart, they could measure their own pulse rates in Maths. Then, they could adjust the pause times in their code to make the micro:bit heart flash quickly like after running or slowly like when they are resting. For a quick assessment, a simple ‘peer debug’ works great. You could have the children swap tablets with a partner to see if they can figure out how to change the flashing speed of their friend’s heart. This kind of activity is brilliant for School Self-Evaluation (SSE). In a small school setup, keeping a digital folder with a few photos of the childrens code blocks over a term is excellent evidence.
I just tried out the Coin Flipper tutorial on MakeCode, and it was a great little project to do. The program uses the micro:bit’s shake sensor to trigger a coin toss. When you shake your mouse, it picks a random “true” or “false” result. If it’s true, the screen shows a ‘Tick’ icon, and if it’s false, it shows an ‘X’ icon. I added a quick flashing animation block at the start so it actually looks like a coin spinning in the air before it lands on an icon.
My Project Link https://makecode.microbit.org/_PaYA9qFbcc49
This would be brilliant for bringing some ICT into our usual hands on STEM lessons. I could link this to Maths for a great integrated STEM lesson. I could use it for a probability lesson. The children could work in pairs to shake their micro:bits 20 times, track the results on a tally chart, and see how close they get to a 50/50 split.
I really like how you highlighted collaboration and problem-solving. Getting the children working together and sharing their ideas through digital tools is half the battle. Doing just one Dream Space lesson a month is a very realistic, smart way to go about it. In a busy school, our timetables are always packed, so a steady monthly pace gives you and the children plenty of breathing room to get stuck into the lessons without feeling rushed. To bring computational thinking into other subjects, you could try doing it ‘unplugged’ first without any screens. For example, in an English or History class, you could get the children to break down a story plot or a historical timeline into a step by step sequence.
As a senior teacher in a small two teacher school, I’ve been trying to figure out how to make our twice-weekly STEM sessions as impactful as possible across our mixed age groups.
Looking at the Digital Learning Framework specifically Learner Experiences, I’ve been reflecting on how our practice has evolved and where it needs to go next.
Up to now, we have been focusing on hands-on, practical STEM projects. The children are great at building structures, testing out physical materials, and working collaboratively in their teams. Because of our multi-class setup, our older children are also brilliant at peer-tutoring the younger children during these practical challenges.
While our hands on work is strong, we are definitely lacking on the technology side. I really want to introduce more ICT and coding into our STEM classes going forward so the children can start blending physical building with digital learning.
I hope to use ICT for reflection. I will get the children to use our school tablets at the end of a STEM project to take photos of their creation and audio-record a short explanation of how they did it.
Also, I would love to introduce Scratch Coding to my class. I would set a specific, achievable goal for every child to create a simple digital animation of an animal moving across the screen.