Be sure that all students understand the goals of the challenge before beginning, and that they are formulating evidence-based strategies for completing the challenge. After students view the video, have a whole-class discussion about the challenge using students' answers to the questions as the basis. 

In this challenge, students will first design their slalom course, and then code their robots to navigate the course as quickly as possible. As you are discussing the challenge with students, guide them towards the realization that their strategy for the challenge will be influenced by how the design of their slalom course and their coding project work together. 

• The video shows one possible slalom setup. See the teacher note below for suggestions on how students can make creative slalom courses.

Remind students that they can apply everything they have learned so far in the course to complete the challenge. They can use journal entries from previous units, like path planning, to support their claims or to help them form and discuss initial strategies.

Because students are creating their own slaloms, they may need additional help in coming to group consensus. This video from VEX PD+ gives you guidance on helping students develop the habit of mind, thinking flexibly.

Remind students of challenge expectations at the start.

• Students will engage in the same driving and coding process from the lessons to complete the unit challenge. 
• Brainstorm with students how they will make sure that each group member contributes to both collaborative strategy development as well as coding. 

Distribute the Step 2 task card (Google / .docx / .pdf) to students to guide them through creating their slalom course, and developing a collaborative strategy to complete the driving part of the challenge. 

• Students will first need to collaborate to create their slalom course. You may want to have a discussion with students about how they will ensure everyone is in agreement about their course design.
  • Not all students may be familiar with the idea of a slalom. If needed, have a discussion about what a slalom is, or share a video of a ski or kayak slalom with students.
• Encourage students to be creative with their courses! They can change the layout of the tiles, or even create their course on a table or floor. Two groups could even combine their fields to make a larger area for the slalom. 
  • Slalom courses can contain three gates made with barrels, and one AprilTag gate (the finish gate).  If students need a simpler challenge, have them remove one barrel gate.

As you circulate through the room, check in with each group to see how they are sharing and collaborating on a challenge strategy. Ask questions like:

• What have you tried so far? Was it successful? Why or why not? 
• What is one thing you think you can improve on to make your collaborative strategy better than an individual one? Why do you think that will help?
• How is your group collaborating to develop a strategy or plan about your project?

Ensure all groups can explain their strategy to you before moving on to coding their projects in Step 3. Give a signal to the class to let them know when it is nearing time to wrap up and move on to the next step. Remind them they can return to Drive mode at any time to help them complete the challenge.

Distribute the Step 3 task card (Google / .docx / .pdf) to students to guide them through collaborative coding to complete the challenge.

Circulate around the room as students are coding, and engage them in conversations about their process and progress. Ask questions like:

• How are you creating your coding project to ensure you complete the slalom as quickly as possible? How is your documentation helping you to do so?
• What challenges are you facing as you create your project? How are you using driving to help you solve those challenges? 
• How is your group collaborating to code and document your challenge project? 

Students can move onto Step 4 once they have completed an initial project to complete the task. They should move freely and frequently between driving and coding to improve their projects. Encourage students to reflect on the reasoning behind each iterative change they make. Ask questions like:

• What about your strategy are you trying to improve? What is your goal for this iteration?
• Why do you think your idea will be successful? How will you know?
• How are you going to work together to implement that change? What role will each group member play in this iteration?

In a unit challenge, you can determine when it is time to end the challenge and transition students into sharing their learning. Once you feel that all groups have had time to complete the challenge effectively and iteratively, wrap up the challenge phase and move on to strategy sharing.

Once everyone has completed the challenge, come together for a whole-class strategy sharing session and discussion. This is an opportunity to highlight the interplay of driving and coding to solve the challenge. It is also a chance to help students explore how students' slalom course designs and what they learned in the unit influenced their coding projects and strategy. Continue to encourage students to support their claims with evidence.

The discussion should center around the final bullet – Do you think your strategy was the best way to complete the challenge? Why or why not? By the end of the discussion, the class should have consensus on what the best approach means to them.

• Begin with one group sharing their strategy or demonstrating their project for the class, and presenting their answers to the questions. 
• Other groups then respond to what was shared, using their strategy for the project and journal documentation as evidence to support their claim. 
• Encourage students to think more deeply about what "best" means in the context of this challenge. The goal of the challenge is to optimize the time it takes to complete the challenge, but the design of the slalom course has a direct effect on this. Given the variety of slalom courses used across the class, what conclusions can you come to as a class about what best is in this instance? What evidence can be used to support these conclusions?

Remind students of classroom expectations for respectful discussion, and encourage them to agree or disagree using evidence, not judgment.

Remember, the purpose of Reflect and Share is to guide students to:

• Evaluate their progress toward each learning target, using evidence from their journals to support their claims.
• Guide the class as a whole to converge their thinking around the unit understandings. 
• Relate their learning to real-world applications.

First, students will complete the sentences to reflect on their progress toward each of their learning targets.

Next, engage students in a whole-class discussion by inviting students to share what they wrote in their journals. Guide students towards shared conclusions about each of the unit understandings, using prompts like:

• Which explanation best matches the observations we collected throughout the unit? How do we know? 
• Is there evidence that makes one explanation stronger than the others? Why? 
• Can we agree on one explanation based on our combined evidence and discussions throughout the unit? Why or why not?

Once you have guided students' thinking to converge around the unit understandings, you may want to create or add to class artifacts that display the class's shared understandings for students to refer to moving forward.

Finally, students should relate their learning to the real-world connections they brainstormed at the beginning of the unit. Guide the discussion with questions like:

• What connections can you make between our learning today and the experiences you shared earlier from outside the classroom? How does what you learned apply to real-world scenarios? (Student answers will vary depending on their relevant experience.)