I just wanted to let you know that we saw your post and are very interested to hear whether other teachers ran into this roadblock and if so how they got through it. It’s not surprising that the more abstract portions of the diagram are causing some confusion so I wouldn’t say that there’s anything “wrong” with the struggles your students are facing. Now we just need to find a good solution.
The one thought I’ve had is that the example in the worksheet is static and so it doesn’t really reveal the process of how it was created. It might make sense to do a live demonstration of the thinking process involved in building a diagram. Take an example experience from the class, write it on the board and then start asking “Can we represent this as a number or text?” Give examples of how you might try to do this at each step to demonstrate how you’re checking if it’s possible. Early on the answer will be “No” typically, so then demonstrate how you are splitting those higher-level portions of your encoding into smaller pieces. When you do get to the bottom just be really explicit with how you’re making your decision of which type of encoding (ASCII / number) that you’re using. I suppose the meta-comment here is that you’re not “giving anything away” by running through this process fairly explicitly, and I don’t think jumping in to reteach it would be robbing them of opportunities to learn it for themselves.
Closing Thoughts:
Other teachers please chime in with your own thoughts and tips!
Frank keep us posted with how things go!
Frank thanks for being so honest with how this lesson is going in your classroom and coming to the forum with your questions and frustrations. They’re certainly not foreign to any teacher and I’m hoping that we’ll be able to craft a solution together.
Glad to hear that this project got off to a good start. If you get an opportunity to post one or two of the projects your students complete I’m sure other teachers would love to see them (and I know we would too!)
On to your question. The distinction between encoding and protocol is one that we have made as writers but the term “encoding” does not actually appear in the CSP Framework. The reason we have made that distinction is that protocols imply that there is sending and receiving of information taking place and that is how the word is used in the framework. We use the word “encoding” to reflect that this project focuses solely on how the information is represented and doesn’t focus on how it will be sent and received (e.g. how it would be split up, timing, confirmation of receipt, etc.)
From the example you shared it seems like this distinction between the way information is encoded and the process or protocol for sending/receiving it is indeed less clear than was our intention. I am thinking that we may want to more explicitly address this distinction in the introduction to the project since it was a potential source of confusion we identified previously and I have to imagine other teachers will encounter it.
Closing Thoughts:
Katie your understanding of these two (admittedly similar) terms is accurate. We wanted to make sure we did not misuse the term “protocol” since it implies a process (e.g. sending / receiving) and is a term that appears in the CSP framework.
We’re interested to know if / how you ended up addressing this in your class.
Other teachers please chime in if you encountered this misconception and if / how you addressed it
Thanks again for letting us know and have a great week!
CS Principles Team
Hey Jessica thanks for sharing this, it looks great! Lots of good information included and I have to imagine thinking about how to encode a dance routine would be a great thinking challenge.
I’m gathering you’re running the original version of the project since your students are developing sub-encodings (in this case “body part”). As a note to other teachers recall we updated this project in response to feedback on the original version but you should feel free to use the old version if you like (linked in an older post in this forum).
Keep sharing your projects everyone, and happy encoding!
The CS Principles Team
That you, that does clarify it for me. To be honest, I did not get a chance to clear that up with my class yet, but I feel like next year I will do a better job of having precise and consistent language throughout my instruction which will help students and myself make that distinction. I don’t really think I understood that distinction until the end of the unit myself.
Here is one of my student examples here so you can see how this group of students approached the project.
The link in the lesson plan to the Performance tasks still has 100 word limits. I heard at PD that they were changed to 300 words. Is there an updated version?
Students in my class are just beginning Lesson 17 (10/26). They have used poster board to “rapid prototype” their ideas. Now they are using https://www.fluidui.com/ to mash up (RDBM) their data (i.e. encode their “experience”), and then they will use “snippet” to bring in screen shots of their “Fluidui” “pages” which they will map out on a canvas in Gimp. This canvas must be of large enough resolution (lessons 14-15) that we can print out the work as a poster (I will actually print out and hang up the “top picks”). In addition to the information contained in relation to “encoding the experience”, students will be asked to include information relating to the digital file itself (the presentation medium)…bits used, color depth, corresponding RGB/HEX values, resolution, etc. as an example of “metadata”. They will also have to address the file type used to save their work to (lesson 16)…why did they choose .png vs. .jpg vs. tiff, etc.? We’ll see how this goes.
Dani,
The grid in the activity guide is a tremendous help. I am planning on spending 2-3 days on this project; My lower end students will have difficulty so I am going to differentiate the pairs. Do you have any idea what the typical amount of days spent on the unit 1 project is?
Glad to hear the resources are helpful for you. We have heard from different teachers that it takes different amounts of time. 2-3 days sounds in the normal range. We suggest you cap the time you give students for this project because you can always add details to this diagram to encode more pieces so some students could go on with this for a very long time.
Overall, I felt the end of unit assessment was a very positive, rewarding experience for my students. Some pairs overextended their reach (encoding an experience for Christmas) while others made wiser decisions. The area that I find my students lacking the most is with the written responses. My students are having an extremely difficult time with the writing prompts. This is probably due to a limited amount of background knowledge. I was wondering if anyone else is experiencing this too? Additionally, I think if this was Stage 18 and Stage 17 was a quick lesson on abstraction the project would have run smoother.
For anyone who is interested, here is a link to my modified plan. Also, I have a link to sample student work that can be accessed here. I noticed about a month ago that Google Drive folders were being developed so that teachers could share plans, student work, etc. – is this still a work in progress?
As I prepared to present Lesson 17 I came back to the forum to get ideas. Thanks to many of you who detailed your projects. I know I am still not 100% clear, but the PD session was great to help clarify some confusions that I have. Thanks again to all for sharing their ideas and to those that submitted a table with data-this allowed me to clarify and feel more concrete in the guidance that I have to provide to my students.