I am implementing a CS Principles-like introductory course at the college level - face-to-face. I would like to develop it with one eye on the possibility of offering the same course online, i.e., with no f2f meetings.
For those of you familiar with the curriculum, can the many activities be tweaked or modified for use in
a. online groups
b. individual hands-on at home?
Thanks in advance for any help!
Dave Gibbs
Hey @dgibbs,
Excited to hear you’re looking to use our materials. You may run into some challenges trying to create an online version of the course but I wanted to try to help you think through it.
We write assuming in-person meetings. For example most lessons include some kind of discussion component in the warm up. During the main activity we prompt students to talk with a neighbor. During programming activities we encourage students to share ideas with a partner and we’re assuming a teacher is circulating the room to provide supports. There are likely ways to modify lesson delivery to achieve similar purposes (e.g. forums, digital synchronous meetings over video) but communication and collaboration are big components of the course so thoughtful work would be needed to replace in-person interactions.
There are some lessons that cannot be completed asynchronously at all. In particular lessons using the Internet Simulator, featured prominently in Units 1 and 2, require students to be using a tool online at the same time. Remote, synchronous versions of those lessons might be possible with the right video call setup, but it would be logistically challenging.
I know that there are other teachers and districts who have circumstances where they are remote or need to work asynchronously. Hopefully they can weigh in on some of the strategies they’ve chosen to use as well. Hope that’s a helpful start though and thanks as always for writing in with questions!
GT