Supporting teachers and mentors in the classroom and throughout the FIRST experience will improve the willingness to participate in all FIRST Programs. 

Training for Team supervision through teacher/mentor certifications

• FIRST Canada and College delivered training in a Robotics Learning Environment
• Teacher Skills Certifications authorized by College Partners, FIRST Canada and local School Boards
• Resulting in increasing availability of mentors with certifications to supervise FRC  and FTC teams

Anti-burnout Strategies  

Participation in the FIRST Robotics Competition program may be connected to burnout. Some solutions can be communicated to mentors and their main stakeholders at the school board. FIRST Canada plans to elevate awareness for mentors, so they execute their seasons with an efficient and intentional framework that significantly reduces personal time on task.

• FIRST will support strategic workshops and collaboration activities with mentors and school boards, resulting in building strong team foundations and support mechanisms
• Collaboratively developing and sharing out strategies for Increasing mentor numbers per team, resulting in less mentor time taxation as the pool of mentors grows.

Partnerships with companies and school board decision-makers are extremely important for the success of an FRC team. Building solid financial sponsorships is also just as important. Once teacher mentors understand how to go beyond the school and team to build these partnerships, they will be more willing to be involved as they have the necessary support.

• FIRST Canada will deliver team workshops to nurture an understanding of how to build partnerships and increase sponsorships
• FIRST will support sharing best practices with team mentors while developing board understanding of financial budget models to support team sustainability 

Bringing FIRST into the classroom reduces the overall time on task for teacher mentors. FIRST Canada will continue and increase its efforts to create a curriculum that will allow FIRST STEM programs to be brought into the classroom by:

• Ongoing curriculum development supporting FIRST in the classroom
• Curriculum Mapping for multiple subjects, resulting in two new course syllabi created annually along with multiple FIRST curricular-related unit creations to courses 
• Partnering with subject organizations which support STEM and FIRST
• Continuing to develop and nurture connections with the Ministry of Education

Curricular Resources

FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST Robotics Competition Curriculum Coming Soon

Building models of delivery through families of schools allows for community and collaboration among educators. Teachers who feel sufficient support is in place are more likely to engage in FIRST programs like FRC. Most school boards in Ontario operate by the model; “families of schools ecosystem,” which intends to bring together all existing and potential new FIRST board wide teams into this family. 

School boards continue to demonstrate strong support for this model. FIRST Robotics Canada supports:

• FRC school organized groups and recurring meetings facilitated by FIRST Canada
• FIRST Canada facilitating a “Families of Schools” framework with school boards

Sharing best practices for top-down mentoring in school board FIRST  communities

FIRST Canada intends to build overall membership into FIRST Canada, creating a broader sense of belonging for students and teacher mentors. Furthermore, FIRST will support skills tracking of students throughout their FIRST journey. As a result, we will allocate and track certifications that contribute to a valuable digital resume for FIRST youth, along with providing “take-away evidence” for alumni as they pursue post-secondary destinations and careers, including skilled trades and apprenticeships.

This plan supports:

• Teachers/mentors who will be offered membership to participate in skills development activities on school and/or college campuses
• Development of membership to FIRST program for teachers and students 
• Student membership through participation skills tracking and certifications
• Career Skills Resume takeaway for alumni
• Numerous workshops for Teacher College Faculty programs

Passport to Success

The FIRST experience provides valuable learning and skills acquisition. Students become alumni and will benefit from taking away strong skills and evidence via electronic documentation that they can leverage going forward. FIRST Canada will evolve a list of skilled alumni to build their volunteer pools, allowing for the growth of FIRST events. FIRST Canada plans to develop its own FIRST Skills Passport for students.

FIRST will support:

• Process development to track skills acquired through FIRST program involvement initially focused on high school FRC-level participation
• Mapping of acquired skills relative to career pathways, including apprenticeships
• Alignment with career planning for all post-secondary destinations

FIRST Certifications

Teachers and students will participate in activities that may award them certifications. Certifications are valuable for students in the future, and teacher capacity will be increased through various training and certifications. It will be beneficial to leverage the FTC and FRC programs to provide in-class certifications within key embedded Ministry of Education-approved course curricular certifications.

FIRST program participation will provide opportunities for:

• Micro certifications, including increased breadth of the FIRST Badge program
• Certifications gained through mandated training and certifications requirements for embedded school programs such as the Special High Skills Major programs (e.g. SPE certification for coding through the FTC SIM)
• Teacher Training in partnership between school boards, colleges, and FIRST Canada offers significantly increased teacher mentor availability to supervise by upskilling opportunities. Colleges have partnered in a similar experience, bridging the knowledge gap between teachers and school boards to elevate teacher familiarity with equipment and learning space.

FIRST  is working to elevate the value proposition for alumni. 

We feel that we can increase support for our alumni and improve their job readiness through a variety of methods:

• Resume of acquired skills through FIRST  program experiences and participation
• Mapping identifying career choices suitable to the desire of students
• Industry guest speaker series exposure within the classrooms supporting FIRST programs
• Alignment to Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program criteria to better position students for potential advanced placement 
•  Connecting and preparing FIRST students/alumni for advanced placement in school programs such as Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program, Co-operative, Post-secondary Destinations, Career Pathways

Increasing rookie support results in ease of entry into the FRC mentor role. We believe unique support can make it easier to attend competitions through release days off teaching and provide rookies early participation through off-season events. Placing FIRST HQ-supported mini XRP robots into the hands of rookies at the point of registration promotes growth in the FRC program.

Rookie Team Support 

FIRST supports rookies by:

• Elevating the desire to participate through more competition experiences; offering  rookie teams free spots in Offseason FRC events
• Potential Teacher release time to attend qualifying competitions 
• Loaning a robot to provide the rookie team with a robot to participate in an Offseason event
• XRP robot distribution and training – mini robot based on Java coding to develop early exposure and skill development for new teams well before the FRC season. Teams will get 2 XRP mini robots to get started

Find out more about the FIRST Robotics Canada Affiliated School Board Program