Travis White taught for years in both Virginia and a Charlotte area charter school before coming to Providence Day School. He briefly considered exploring other careers but then decided he was not quite done with education. He had a vision for teaching robotics and engineering, and now, Travis is now living out that vision with his students every day in the IDEAS Exchange space.
Mr. White holds four different degrees, including a Master's in Education and a bachelor's in Physics. He also happens to be a whiz in mathematics, as high-level math is needed to understand and apply physics. But, his passion is learning what companies use every day in the workplace to innovate and then bringing those tools and skills to the classroom. “I want to prepare students for the future. The actual future.”
To answer that question, Travis worked with Samsung. He interviewed some top executives there and posed crucial questions about what they are looking for in young people applying to their company. Surprisingly, technical skills did not make the top of the list. “They told me they wanted graduates who can work together, ask questions, be creative, be innovative, and use one another to find resources they might need. Once I learned that, I decided that is what I am doing. Our students need to learn the basics.” Providence Day teaches the basics or four core skills through it’s “PD Passport”. Those are: communication, creativity, collaboration and critical thinking. But in Mr. White’s class, students learn the passport skills through robots.
Travis adds, “My goal is to teach students to be creative. Of course, I want them to know the technical skills, but I also need them to know how to sell their idea and convey it to a non-technical expert. That is where the application comes in.”
Right now, Mr. White teaches middle school-level robotics and engineering, but his hope, over time is to expand and create an upper school robotics program. “I want to empower students to pursue things they are interested in. The older the student, the more unique their curiosities about the world and projects. I want to help them explore that. I want to find out what students are interested in and foster that.”
When it comes to a recent Middle School robotics class, Travis had students code a robot to draw a design on paper. Everyone set their robots ready to go at the same time and in unison, colorful robot artwork appeared on the paper, all the work of the students and their programming.
“We love this class,” says Aaron Varze. “It is fun and entertaining. Plus we get to understand coding. I have always wanted to make robots and that is what we make.’
“Our robot design makes a pattern of waves. I just wanted pure chaos,” says Aubrey Jacobs, whose partner in class is Rory Ackermann. “We became friends, and we work really well together,” Jacobs says.
Mr. White says their next project is “wonderfully chaotic”, as students will have to program robots to make it through a maze. They were challenged to think through what type of sensors the robots need to navigate direction. “Here is why we are doing that now,” Travis exclaims. “It’s like a corn maze! ‘Tis the season.” All his students smiled as they began to brainstorm their next assignment.