Teaching sequencing

I think I would bring in the equipment needed to make toast and ask the kids to instruct me on how to make it. Similar to the peanut butter sandwich idea. :smile:

It is fun to teach sequencing with a variety of step by step processes.

Love your early childhood version. I will be having 6-8th graders create steps to complete an activity such as making a sandwich. Soo excited about our GPS CS team!!

Thanks, Burt! Couldnā€™t have a better team with an awesome team leader! Hereā€™s to preparing GPS students for success! :robot::dog:

To teach basic sequencing, I introduced happy maps so students could understand how algorithms really are a set of instructions necessary to help a machine perform a command.

I ask my students to navigate me around the desks in the room until I reach the door using explicit commands such as 1 step forward turn right 90 degrees etc

I like the idea of the train summarize the idea of sequencing. After conducting " my robotic friend," I would explan that the instructions that you give are an algorithm. Each step would be a sequence in the algorithm.

I saw many great ideas posted - hard to follow on with something brand new. I have always liked the activity where one person has to draw a secret picture and then give directions to a partner to draw the same picture, the drawings are compared at the end. This would be a good intro for intermediate elementary kids for sequencing and programming.

Love the PB and J lesson. There is a great computer programming Brain Pop where Tim programs Moby to make a PB and J. This will be a great connection to that!

I used to teach ELA, before my current role. Making connections by comparing algorithms to recipes and following directions seemed to help students make the connections. My favorite is making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. If you skip a step, the sandwich doesnā€™t come out the way you want it to. You have to be very specific.

Now with teachers I talk about the building blocks of learning. We discuss talk about how students canā€™t learn to read if they donā€™t recognize the alphabet. Or a student will have difficulty with multiplication if they donā€™t understand basic addition facts.

I like to have my students give me directions to do something (tie shoe, etc) and I do exactly what they tell me to show what happens if they miss a step. I teach grades K-5 technology class. The directions vary by grade and it is always fun to see the light bulb go off when they get it. I also explain that humans have the brain to problem solve missing or bad directions, but that computers have to do whatever direction given, even if it doesnā€™t make sense.

I think we should have a general understanding of the curriculum first, and then understand the studentsā€™ interest points.The sequence of courses can be adjusted flexibly.

Sequencing is the order of your instructions to successfully complete a task. Algorithms are a set of instructions to accomplish a goal.

I use the unplugged ā€œrobotā€ to show how the program can be bugged and how to debugged it.

I always work in pair or group

There are a lot of great ideas on here! I also might use the approach of having students write directions on how to get to a specific location within the school. Iā€™d have them write it as though they were doing it for a new student or possibly a visually impaired student and must include the number of steps for each directional movement.

I feel explaining sequencing/algorithm as a set of rules or directions to follow to complete an activity is the best example for younger students.

There are lots of great ideas on here - I like the common theme of using an old game to teach new concepts. Much like the classic PB&J example, we all use algorithms every single day, but we just donā€™t call them that! With younger students, I think guiding flurbs to fruit in guided exercises with the teacher would be fun, and then revealing there are actually little fluffy flurbs in the class the kids can guide around and take home at the end of the day could be fun and effective. Everyone enjoys having characters they can relate to and root for (or root against!).

This is really great - having the physicality of the characters would really help younger students, I think. It makes the unplugged exercises that more immediate. I hope to work with K students with code.orgā€™s curriculum, so Iā€™ll certainly keep an eye out for your posts on the forums. :robot:

I havenā€™t officially started teaching these concepts and skills, yet. However, I think Iā€™d be prone to showcase sequencing by referencing the sequences we follow at school. For example, I teach in the Media Center, so I would talk about the steps we take: check in your old book, get a shelf marker stick, find a new book, check out those books. Then I would go on to explain that if we were to write out those steps, we would have our ā€œlibrary algorithm.ā€ Iā€™d like to say that, since students already know these steps, that grasping the concept of sequence and algorithm would be easy.
Then I could even go further, and explain if we were to do those steps over and over, weā€™d have a loop. I think this real-world application, that they already know, would be a great way to introduce these concepts and skills.

I love the Happy Maps lesson for my 1st grade students. Itā€™s a great way to introduce sequence and algorithm.