How will Courses 1-4 be affected once Courses A-F are implemented?

I teach Computer Science (in a small district) to Grades 4 through 7. I meet with students once every 4 days and uses Courses 1-4 with them as part of the curriculum. I find that in our situation, Courses 1 to 4 are a good match for grades 4 to 7 respectively. The expectation is that by the end of Grade 7, students would have complete through Stage 18 of Course 4. Our students switch to Python in Grade 8.

How long will Courses 1 to 4 be available after the implementation of Courses A to F? If for at least one year, would the puzzles in the stages be updated to similar ones in the new courses? For example, would the collector be added in appropriate places?

Also, since I have students at al levels of Courses 1 to 4, how would progress be affected if they all migrate to the A-F system? Not being sure, I am guessing that what would work for us here would be to start all new students in A-F, but have current students complete 1-4.

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This is a great question!

Right now, our plan is to start recommending courses A-F beginning in August of 2017. At which point, Courses 1-4 will become less visible, but they will continue to be around indefinitely, though it might get hidden.

We have a rough translation of these courses:

Courses A & B ~ Course 1
Courses C & D ~ Course 2
Courses E ~ Course 3
Course F ~ Course 4

If you do decide to make the transition, and all of your students have started Course 3 (for example) then you should be able to transfer all of your students over to Course E and have them continue from there. The puzzles aren’t 1:1, but they get the same ideas across.

At this time, we are not planning to do any future upgrades to Courses 1-4, unless we are rolling out a new tool that helps every Fundamentals course (like the angle helper and End of Stage extras.)

Hope that helps!

~Kiki

Love the End of Stage Extras!! That is where you can really see student creativity.

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