'15-'16 Sending Numbers

CS Principles Unit and Lesson Discussion
1

Use this as a space to record your feedback and questions about this lesson.

2

I believe lesson will reinforce binary messages and setting up rules and guidelines

3

I love this lesson as it incorporates a lot of critical thinking and problem solving.

4

In one way I like it as it is setting stage for internet. Same time, it is going to be difficult w.r.t classroom management.

5

I see this lesson as a chance for them to try out their newfound power of being able to think in binary. This will be a great lesson…IF I complete the other lessons and assess, spiral back, and remediate so that everyone who is gong to learn it has multiple chances to.

6

For this lesson, I will most likely allow students to play with the tool first and then stop them, ask a few questions, and then watch the video identifying the academic vocabulary.

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7

I liked how this simulator worked. I like how the students are slowly being trained to make protocols without being asked at first. When given time to play it feels like you immediately go to making a protocol.

8

I think that it will be important for this lesson that students are fluent in converting binary numbers to base 10, or that they consistently use the converter program. I will be sure to review counting from 1-10 in binary before we start this lesson.

9

I really liked this lesson because it gave students a chance to make a design of their own and try to send code to have that design duplicated. It was a great example of creativeness, problem solving, testing, retesting, solution, and communication.

10

In this lesson the students will engage in a lot of problem solving activities, I know it will be challenging for them and love the peer share as this will provide support for both students involved…

11

I excited to see how this set up builds up their understanding of binary numbers. i have always taught it with just straight binary. I really more students really understand it.

12

I really appreciate how this brings together the binary numbers from the previous lesson and the protocols of other lessons. I think the task is sufficiently complex that some pairs will struggle, so making sure the struggle doesn’t go too far and they give up will be something to look out for.

13

I love the simulator as well. I will however have all students watch the video together with me, answer prepared questions in group to enhance their understanding. Last but not least I will model the various concepts explained in the video for my students.

14

Guiding questions for students as they develop their protocol:

  1. What quadrant of the coordinate plane will you be using?
  2. Does order between the points matter?
  3. How many bits do you need to describe the highest point?
  4. How can we differentiate between the first coordinate and the second?
  5. How can we differentiate between the a point and the next point?
15

I like how these lessons tie into one another and there is a flow. The lesson 7 creation of the Flippy Doo will, I think, help a few of my students with this lesson that are not extremely confident in their math skills. We are getting ready to do the first Internet Simulator activity at the beginning of this week and I am hoping it goes well with the students. If it does, this lesson should run more smoothly as they will have a better tool. My biggest issue right now is that I have an odd number of students in my class so it makes it difficult doing a lot of pair activities. I am having to create a team of 3 from time to time and have one person be the navigator and the other the recorder. It is nice, but all students want the opportunity to use these tools.

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16

I recall in training PD struggling a bit with this one, especially with regard to time limitations. There feels like a lot to do in a relatively short amount of time… especially if the drawings prove to be elaborate (at least as elaborate as they can be within the context of the lesson). I am curious if anybody else experienced this, and, if so, what might be a good solution here?

17

Before moving on to Lesson 9, I created a Binary Cheat sheet because some of my students were still struggling with understanding BIT, Binary numbers, and deriving patterns. Students were given this form as a 10 minute warm up in which they could work together. This helped clear up misconceptions and clarify a few terms.

18

That’s great, Dawn! Do you mind sharing your Binary Cheat sheet resource to the forum?

Thanks!
Sarah

19

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4t25FdgrEUicWxlbkN4UmFaWUU/view?usp=sharing

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20

This was actually the lesson that I was asked to teach during last summer’s PD. One thing that became very clear is that assigning all 3 sizes to graph at the same time became confusing very quickly. I would recommend doing the small one first make sure the group got that one, then move on to the mid-size and make sure each group gets that. The large one can be used to send to other groups to make sure they understand the concept. This will allow the students to review their protocol to make sure it’s clear to other groups, etc… The other part was how to actually identify the points to plot - some people interpreted as X,Y place, while others just did a numeric sequence of the intersections or squares - this became an important factor in their protocols because they had to determine how to indicate what system they were using.