I am teaching a STEM class for 11th and 12th graders. I am trying to do about 5-9 weeks for each major career types in STEM. I found this by searching for computer science units and it looks like a great system, but since I can’t do all the units I was hoping to get some advice as to what unit(s) I should use and what should I not use. I have never taught CS or even taken a class on it (I’m a biology major), so I’m very nervous about doing this. Any advice would be very appreciated. Thanks!
Lauren,
I’d suggest you look at Units 3 and 5 in CS Principles. Last year and the year before, I used the App Lab materials as supplementary materials as part of a different curriculum.
Randle
You have a great deal of options for customizing the curriculum to fit the needs of your students. Depending on their prior experience and your goals, I think you could go with the CSP curriculum for any units like the two @randle.moore suggested . I would also encourage you to investigate some other units from the other Code.org curricula.
Specifically,
CS Fundamentals Express for a basic intro to programming
Do you think that middle school students could use the App Lab Materials that you mentioned in CS Principles Unit 3 and 5? Are there online step by step guides for them?
Or do you think this would be too advanced? I am already looking at the CS Discoveries Curriculum but I would like other options as well.
The units do provide step-by-step guidance for the plugged assignments. I think that most of the materials can be used with most secondary students. It would really depend on their prior knowledge, the time frame and some other factors that only their teacher would know like course/unit objectives and articulation to future coursework. Feel free to check out the materials.
Have a great school year!