Hello all!
I had code.org Computer Science Principles training two years ago. This year is my first time teaching this course.
As I understand, this year there is a “create performance task” part. I have just noticed that it is due April 30th. I am trying to find ways to help my students get prepared for the task. I feel like it is too late. Can anyone help me where to start from?
Thanks
Hello @hbekar,
You are correct that the create task is due April 30th. In the curriculum, the Make tasks are designed to help students prepare for the experience of building logic “from the ground up”. That said, I find it helpful to introduce the idea of the task early - even if you’re not going to start yet - and give them time to think about what they might be excited to make for their project. Additionally, you could come up with some warm ups that are just app brainstorming… “As a class, lets imagine we want an app to do XXX. What would your program/users input, store, process, and output? What programing skills do you have that you would leverage in that processing” - All projects need to use some collection type (list), iteration (loop), and selection (if-else). When we’re collectively brainstorming ideas, I try to hone in on these as we talk about storage and processing. Note: I don’t want to do this process too much, because I don’t want to “cover” too many ideas that a student may actually want to use as the subject of their app.
It also helps to look at previous create tasks with students (available on the college board website) and talk through how the program met the requirements (or didn’t).
I find students to be pretty creative and resilient! Knowing that there may be a time crunch, it may be helpful to remind them that its okay build a MVP (minimum viable product). This purpose of project is very much to be a demonstration of programming skills, not the next big hit.
Best,
Madeline