The Assessment/Survey tab is included in your teacher dashboard because we make use of it for the CS Principles course. Since that course moves towards a multiple choice style AP test we include many more multiple-choice style assessments throughout that course. In CS Discoveries we are encouraging assessment using end of chapter and end of unit projects (we provide rubrics for each), activity guides, and daily progress in Code Studio levels. Many teachers, for example, are using the Teacher Panel to look at their studentsâ work in the last level of a lesson and assess whether students have understood the new programming constructs they learned that day. Weâre very interested in your assessment needs, however, so please let us know whether you find these tools sufficient.
Weâve logged the lines of code issue with engineering. In the meantime I would recommend the strategy I mentioned above. Quickly scanning through where studentsâ work is at the end of a lesson using the Teacher Panel can give you a sense of how students are actually able to use the tools theyâre learning. I know that having just a quick line count makes it really easy to scan and see if someone literally didnât even write any code because they were stuck. Keep letting us know how we can make your life easier and if you have other ideas for ways youâd like to check in on student progress.
Weâve heard about this issue before and are planning work to address it. Web Lab is our newest tool so we apologize that youâll run into more bugs there but are very appreciative that youâre sharing them.
No worries man. You guys are doing an awesome troubleshooting job. I am still new to the whole curriculum so Iâm still learning more each day. I wish there was some PD anywhere near southwest Missouri⌠wink winkâŚ
I have used CSD Units 1-3 with an 8th grade Intro to Computer Science class. Seems to be a good fit for that age level. I also teach AP-CSP using code.org. The CSD course is a nice introduction and lead-in to the AP-CSP curriculum. At my school, we offer AP-CSP to 10-12 graders.
This is quite a thread. I just wanted to add my two cents. I teach HS and have mixed grade classes as well. I have taught units 1-3 of CSD with high school students and found that almost all of the materials is appropriate and easily has enough depth that I can dig deeper with students who need more challenge. The only places I have seen that might be significantly different from 7 to 12 are:
Parts of Unit 1 seemed very easy for my high school students. One such area was the problem solving in stage 3. My high school students could definitely use some higher level problem solving tasks.
Also, I still wonder how difficult unit 3 will be for younger students. My students enjoyed it, but some definitely struggled with so many CS concepts in such a short period of time.
I am currently teaching Unit 3 to 7th and 8th graders. The plan is that they will continue to move through the coding as freshmen. I think it will end of being an elective course at the high school and not a required course. I think a beginner to code is a beginner regardless of age or grade. I have students every-other-day for one quarter, this amounts to just four-and-a-half weeks (not much time). I have extended most puzzles in Lesson 3. I did not feel like students were getting enough practice on certain skills that they were learning. For example, in Lesson 3: Puzzle 7, it asks students to rearrange the code so that a green square is in front of a blue square. If a student needed assistance with this task, then they needed more immediate practice to do this. We extended this puzzle by working on order and creating an âXâ (using rects) from the top left corner to the bottom right corner and the top right corner to the bottom left corner. Students had to use at least two colors. They used number patterns to determine the intervals that they would located their rects. Students really created some cool pictures. In Lesson 3: Puzzle 8, it asks students to add an ellipse. I took this opportunity to also work on sizing and order. Students end up creating a traffic light in that puzzle. By doing extensions to puzzles, it gives students a little more practice on that particular skill, it also gives them opportunity to mix their new tech skills with their creative skills and imagination. It does take a little longer, but I think the skills set in a little deeper.
Mrs. Driscoll,
You are definitely right about beginners being beginners regardless of grade level. I know that lots of teachers are looking for extensions, either for students who move quickly, or for students who need more practice with a concept. Would you be willing to share links to any examples you have of what students have been creating?
I taught the pilot to 9-12th Grade and amongst those students I had a variety of skill levels, I encouraged all students to try block based coding, but âstrongly encouragedâ students looking for a challenge to jump into the text based. With all the available resources and supports, my students did really well and by the end of it, they were all on the text based. Just another example of modifying the curriculum to reach older students.
Hi everyone!
I started teaching the Code Principles course last year and loved it so much I adopted the Code Discoveries for my high school intro class too! My students are a mix of 9th - 12th, heavy on the 10th graders. I do see that the fast learners are working ahead and will consider âhidingâ some of the lessons. I also think the idea of adding extensions will be great and plan to incorporate that next year. Thanks for all the great ideas.
Julie Reynolds
Aledo High School
I have begun the process of including the âextensionsâ that I am currently doing with my 7th and 8th graders. I plan to get all of the extensions on, but am at the beginning of this process.
I did this so that students who were absent from school, could just hop on my website and see the âextensionsâ. Otherwise they were having to wait for me to explain each and every one. Some students still need me to sit next to them and explain - that is no problem. That is the wonderful thing about the extensions. It allows me time to get to students who need a little more attention so that they can have more opportunity with me, but still have opportunity to work independently.
You can scroll down and see a complete Lesson 4 of extensions. I started there as that is where we were when I started having absent students here and there. I am in the process of adding to Lesson 3. I will continue through the other lessons with extensions I have done. I am not sure if this is helpful to anyone or not. Here it is: https://mrsdriscol.weebly.com/coding.html
