Reordering Units

Our local workshop engaged in an interesting discussion regarding meeting the various needs of all of the crazy schedules represented here. Several teachers would like to include pieces of units 4, 5, & 6, but they are limited by the amount of time they have with students throughout the school year. As a result, the conversation turned to discussing different ways to order the units that might still be beneficial to student development. Some teachers discussed pairing Units 1 & 4, Units 2 & 5, & Units 3 & 6 in one variation or another. We’d like to know what others might be doing that is like this. What are your thoughts?

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Elizabeth,

I’m attempting a modified semester of Units 1&4, Unit 3 and Unit 6 (with lessons from Unit 5 to scaffold). I’ll let you know!

Brad

We only teach this course for 1 semester. As a result, we only tackle Units 1-3. We found last semester that Unit 3 offers more scaffolding and supports than Unit 2. Additionally, since Javascript and GameLab require code to be much more precise than Web Lab and HTML, students were sloppy coders after Unit 2. We felt that switching Units 2 and 3 would be beneficial for us and the students (less frustration for them when coding and us when grading). So, this semester, I am swapping the units and will start Unit 3 next week and do Unit 2 after that. I’m hoping this will help all of us :slight_smile:

We would like to expand this course to a full year so we can do the entire curriculum and I am really interested in how this conversation plays out.

Thanks!
Mindy

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Mindy,
Would love to hear how swapping the units work for you compared to the first semester. Please share what you find out after trying it this semester.

Karen

I am interested to hear how this went. I teach a 6th grade class which is only 1 semester long. I want this to help feed by 7th grade robotics class and possibly my the grade flight and space class as well as programming classes at our JR. and Senior High. My goal is the modify the order to something like this:
Unit 1 & 4
Unit 2
Unit 3
But would like to bring in elements of 5 & 6 if possible. I am thinking of cutting 2 as I don’t see the real world relevance with all the web app website builders out there.

I would love to hear thoughts and experiences with items mentioned here.

John Garrett
Surprise Lake Middle School
Fife School District.