CS Discoveries Classes

Good day everyone. I’m new here and I hope to get some insights. I will be teaching CS Discoveries and I would like to know how many classes (time if possible) per week is best suited for kids.

Thank you

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Hi Marcus,
The curriculum was written with daily 45-50 minute classes in mind. CSD also has flexible implementation. For example, some of my students will be spending 50 minutes in class every other day, but only completing one “semester” of the course.

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Thank you very much Mike. So if I understand accurately 5 days a week and 45-50 minutes per day?

Marcus - Ideally, yes!

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I was able to pilot units 1-3 with 30-35 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Obviously my pace was slower but I was successful in covering the material.

Thanks for your input!

As an incentive for their class, since we are working with Middle School. My daughter came up with a great Idea. As they successfully complete a level. Depending on the degree of skill, they will earn CODE CASH.
They can cash it in at the end of the week, month, semester and will receive ‘gifts’. This enables them to learn to manage money while being determined to work harder on the lessons in Code.org

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Renee

Did you teach your course for an entire year? I have 7th Graders for a 9 weeks (42 min periods), 5 days a week. It comes out to be on average about 43 Days that I have the kids in class. I will be teaching Units 1 & 3. Do you have any suggestions on Lessons that I can cut out, shorten? Or do you have any resources that you created that would make this easier on the kids to understand? I am struggling to try and figure how to teach all of the information in such a short period of time and still have the kids understand and be able to apply it all. In addition since I am a first time coder myself it takes me a long time to figure out the correct code to use in some of the lessons. Do you have any answer keys.

Any information and input would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks

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Marcus,

I am interested in knowing how you’re going to do your Semester courses i.e… what units you’re going to cover per semester?

Hi @fstovall,

The curriculum is actually designed for either a year long implementation or 2 separate semesters. If you have just a semester course then it would be Unit 1,2 and 3 which would be included in semester 1 of the curriculum. Hope that helps!

-Dani

First semester: Unit 1 and 2
Second semester: Unit 3

I am piloting this course now for 9th - 12th graders - one section (next year we will have two teachers - 4 sections). Classes meet every day for a semester and are 78 minutes long. Maybe I am letting them move too slow or it’s the level of my students (non-honors or ap 9th - 12th) but I think I’ll only be able to get through 4 units if I am lucky. I was wondering if anyone has been able to complete the entire course and if so, what lessons did you skip? Did you require them to complete lessons for homework? I don’ think this will work for lower level students and many students don’t have computers at home. I understand it’s a year long course but 78 minutes daily, I should be able to complete most of the units/lessons if I skip some. I don’t have the kits for Unit 6 so I know those won’t be possible this year. Another question - I’ve been teaching AP CSP and even though most of the code is given to students in CSD, it seems to cover so much more programming. I am assuming middle school 6th - 8th grade classes are probably only getting through 1 or 2 units. Are there any hs teachers that teach both CSD and AP CSP that can chime in? I love the curriculum for both courses and trying to see what works best. Thanks in advance!

@carmichaelc
I am teaching the CSD course to 9-12 graders who are across the spectrum from sped students to AP track students.(which is a wholly other challenge) We started in early August and have one 60min class, and two 110min classes a week. We are currently finishing up unit 4. We will have like 5 weeks left. I have asked the students if they want to do the data unit(unit 5) or another programming unit(unit 6) and overwhelmingly they want data! The programming is tough and makes them think too much I guess. :slight_smile: I didn’t skip anything and I think that they have really gotten the core material of the class. Sometimes I feel like we are moving really slowly for some students but it is just right for others. Its a tough balancing act with such a diverse learner group. I think I will do a better job next year!

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I currently am teaching CSD to 9th and 10th graders. The majority of my students did not have a choice whether they were in the class. I am currently finishing up Unit 4 and plan to skip Unit 5 so we can have fun with the circuit playgrounds. My students took forever to complete Unit 3 and some hadn’t finished but I decided to move ahead anyway. I made sure all of the students completed an Interactive Card. This was a major accomplishment for some.
Last year, I taught a CSP class with a group of 11th & 12th grade students who had very limited programming experience. They did a great job with the programming unit in CSP. The CSP curriculum was developed so students with no previous experience in programming could be successful. I am looking forward to next year when I will have some of my CSD students from this year in my CSP class.

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How did this work out for you? I have a similar situation (here in 2019:)) where I have a 10 week semester (42 min periods) 5 days a week wanting to teach Units 1 and 3.

This worked awesome in my class. I shortened Unit 1. Several students loved Unit 2 and felt very successful. Unit 3 is still a struggle for many students. I paired up several students to work together on all of the lessons including the projects. Very successful! They really enjoyed Unit 4 and some were able to get to Unit 6.