I have nine weeks for Computer Science Discovery... what to keep

I have a semester for each of my groups of Computer Science Discovery. What would you recommend I use in the curriculum?

I would like to keep an eye on this to see the answers :slight_smile:

Also interested, but no real solutions. I have my students once a week all year so about 30 classes.

I would keep the end of unit 1 (computer basics), and go to unit 2 from there. Once you start Unit two it is kind of necessary to keep everything. Maybe have a goal of 6th grades do units 2-4. 7th grades 4-6. The overlap can act as a review?

Thank you… very helpful.

Hi-
Coding class is new to my district. We are standards based grading but unsure how to grade with this new class. Can you share how you do your grading? I would so appreciate it!

1st year teaching - have a background in CS so decided to try CSD w/ 7th and 8th graders. Only meet 2x a week for 40 minutes. The students have no prior CS/coding experience other than the hour of code. My goal was to get through Units 1-3. We’re at the end of Q3 and just finishing up Unit 2. Will hold off on doing Unit 3 until next year for new 8th grade, after reading it takes quite a while to get through.

Unit 1 - kids loved the 1st activity - very hands on/stem. It went downhill from there. They did not like being unplugged for the entire unit. They hated the worksheets, which we did online. I plan to trim some of the lessons for next year’s 7th grade class. The problem solving process is akin to the software development lifecycle I used in the workplace, so I don’t want to drop the subject completely, but need to rethink some of the lessons to incorporate more online activities. Will look to condense 2nd half of unit as well. Also, my current 7th and 8th graders didn’t work well in pairs…may have better luck with next year’s 7th grade, as they successfully pair programmed in Express Course in CS Fundamentals this year as 6th graders.

Unit 2 - Challenge for many of my students - won’t do the work at home, when asked to finish an assignment/lesson that had been started in class. So each lesson is taking min 3 class periods for the average student.

Need way to easily print off HTML code from code.studio - would love to do a formal code review (peers and then by me) of at least 1 page in their websites, so they can see what is correct syntax vs what is not. (Chrome is a very forgiving browser, so improper HTML is being displayed correctly.)

I am finding the same issues. I am trying to plan for next year, which will be my first year teaching CS. My class is made up of 7th and 8th graders and is only a semester long. I was planning on taking approx. 1 day per lesson and there is no way of getting through units 1-4 like I would like. I am also trying to bring in 3D printing and Oculus Rift into the classroom. Does anyone have any suggestions on which lessons I should cut out in order to get through this in a semester?

Thank you so much.