Use this thread to discuss your questions and comments about how to run the lesson.
At this point of the unit (or maybe year) students are getting a little rest-less. I feel like this unit feels too big and the practice PT wasn’t really enough closure for students to pretend like it was really 2 units. I actually stopped this unit after this lesson and moved to programming. We needed the change and I wanted my students to be prepared to help in other classrooms for hour of code… this way they will have some more coding experience when they help in those other classrooms.
I plan on going back to those last few lessons from unit 2 after hour of code week in hopes that the break from the material will allow students go back to it with a fresher perspective and with more energy. I am not sure if there is another way to break up this unit, or if perhaps my own instruction is getting weaker on this material but students are/were starting to disengage. Up until this point the content you all have provided has been phenomenal for my students!
Hey Kaitie,
Sorry for the late reply but I did want to hear more about your thoughts here (and also just let you know we’d seen them!) I gather from talking with some of the other members of the CSP team who have been running PD that you’re not alone in feeling the pressure to move on to programming. It’s definitely something that’s on our radar and we’re trying to come up with good recommendations in response. We’d be curious to know how it goes when you return to these lessons later in the year, and whether you have any ideas or tips for other teachers running into the same issues. Thanks for letting us know how things were going, and please continue to keep us in the loop!
Best,
GT
I’ll just throw out my experience. When I saw the length of the unit and the PT in the middle, I immediately thought of it as two units. I had already started with programming (from another curriculum) and came to this unit with about 4 weeks left in the semester. So I got to the midpoint, through HTTP to the practice PT, at the end of the semester. This allowed me to start fresh with the second half when we came back in January. And in terms of lesson content, the break seems natural as well.
I do like Kaitie’s idea of breaking it in half with programming and will do that next year if the timing can work it out that way.