As my students work through Unit 3 Lessons, I am finding that students are taking much longer than the recommended time for the lesson to complete. Part of the time needs are due to students choosing to “play” with the images they are using - but most of the additional time is legitimate. I am giving them additional time and looking ahead to Unit 4 to see where I can consolidate to get us back on track!
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I hope you can share your pacing of unit 3 at our next workshop. Your input will be very helpful to the rest of our cohort. I hope to see you soon.
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This is an interesting conundrum. Students learn so much through playing with the programming, but I found Unit 3 challenging too. Are you seeing an average difference between what is suggested for time and how much time students are really taking on it. Is it time and a half or greater? That kind of thing…
Lesson 11 easily took twice the time allotted - although they easily understood the unplugged lesson (10) - putting it into practice with code was harder. We are up to Lesson 15 and its been approximately 1.5 times the suggested time per lesson. Even my coding “superstars” have slowed down. The plus side of this has been wonderful examples of persistence and colloboration!!
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Lesson 11 can be challenging for students but as they practice conditionals through the rest of the lessons, they will gain a greater understanding. Persistence and collaboration are awesome practices for the students to learn.
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I am finding the same issue - we’re doing U3:L04 today but looking ahead, I knew this unit would have to go much slower than Unit 1 or 2 (Unit 2 required several days of reteaching specific lessons).
Our class motto is now “No Coder Left Behind” (NCLB) 
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I have started using guided practice for the initial activities in the lesson so that there is a limited amount of “play” time necessary. That way I am sure that everyone has practiced the necessary skills so that they can be successful when they are allowed a bit more creativity. I also have found that this method makes checking their work easier because I told them what to change the values to so everyone’s output should look the same.
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Hello. I am also working on Unit 3 with my students. I see them twice a week: once for 45 minutes and once for 50 minutes. I have a few students left who are finishing up lesson 3, puzzle 14 at this point, which I am using as an assessment. Out of 75 students, many are just starting lesson 4, and a few are on lesson 5 and I think I have one kid on lesson 6. I definitely agree that the pacing suggested might be aimed at hour long classes and therefore yes, it has taken longer than suggested. To keep kids on track, i have playlists that they have to follow for each lesson: they have formative assessments as my check-ins so I don’t have to check every single puzzle and then I check the final submission ('free play") using a rubric that i made up.
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I would agree that the lessons, many times, take more than an hour. When students are exploring and creating, they can really end up spending more time than recommended. for me, I think it is okay as there really is no pacing guide and no high stakes tests to keep on track for. If students are really interested or need more time, we discuss as a class whether to take an extra day or spend and extra 20min on something.
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I love the idea of ‘playlists’!
Would you mind sharing one of your “playlists”? I’d love to see how you set it up!
Happy to Share! Here are the three playlists I created to guide students through their learning progression in Unit 3, Lesson 3: Playlist A, Playlist B, & PlaylistC (This site won’t let me post more than two links, but you’ll notice that each playlist links to each other)
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Looks like the playlists aren’t shared with anyone with the link…
I just get a Google error, but maybe it’s just me … Thanks for being willing to share!
Still no luck … maybe it’s only shared within your organization? It wants me to sign into google to access it, but then I have to request permission.
Hi there,
I’m really interested in your playlists and assessments. Would you mind sharing? I tried the links above but I can’t access. Thank you!
Erin
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This is great! Do you have additional Hyperdocs that you have created!
Good Morning Andrew,
I have and I hope they come in good use. I have Unit 3 up to Lesson 9 and Unit 2 up to Lesson 9 completed. You can access them by clicking on the links. You’ll also find in my Unit 2 folder an additional folder with my colleagues playlists. I’ve used hers as a reference for building mine. Let me know if you cannot access it. My email is: vmiller@nssk12.org
I hope that they are of good use to you. You can also follow me on twitter: @vlynmiller
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