Lagging behind on Unit 2: Advice on Omitting Lessons 6, 7 & 9

CS Principles
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Folks - I am new to this forum, so please excuse anything that is clueless.

I teach all seniors in my school (about 75) as this is a required course, and for various reasons we are lagging behind. I don’t want to do this, but in order to catch up, I am considering omitting the lessons listed below (along with my reasons).

I would like your advice on whether this will come back to haunt us as we prepare for the AP Exam and PT’s.

Also, if you think I should omit different lessons, let me know.

Thanks,
Smadar Bergman
University of Chicago Charter School - Woodlawn Campus

Lesson 6: Practice PT - Encode an Experience
{We don’t have time for all the practice PT’s}

Lesson 7: Introduction to Data
{The Class Data Tracker will be folded briefly into the next lesson}

Lesson 9: Check Your Assumptions
{This will be done independently as HW}

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@sbergman

If you do not have time for the Practice PTs as designed, think about other ways you can support students as they prepare for the PTs. From the sound of it, you are not really eliminating Lessons 7 and 9 just reducing the amount of in class time spent on them. Getting students to think about the impacts of computing on society and communicate those thoughts is a way to prepare for the PT. The reality is that most teachers will not be able to do all parts of the curriculum. In the end, you are uniquely qualified to make decisions for your students and your classroom.

Andrea

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Andrea,

Thanks for your suggestions! We may be uniquely qualified to make these decisions, but being a first-time AP CSP teacher using code.org, we may not know all of the ramifications.

Smadar

P.S. It would be helpful for me to know - were you one of the facilitators in Atlanta this past summer?

4

@sbergman

I was one of the facilitators at TeacherCon Atlanta :grinning:.

Since this is the first year of the official course, it will be difficult to predict how individual lessons connect to the exam. When trying to make decisions about how I implement the curriculum, it is helpful to me to remember that the code.org curriculum is based on the 6 computational thinking practices and 6 big ideas from the College Board. As long as I stay focused on how I provide opportunities for my students to develop skills and to think through the big ideas, I feel comfortable making the necessary adjustments.

Andrea

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5

I am at about the same point you are, we are going to do the lesson 6 Practice PT tomorrow. On thing that I am very much considering is doing Lesson 11 as a flipped classroom activity that the students will be responsible for over the Thanksgiving break. From my reading of the lesson plan, it is almost entirely guided by Code Studio anyway.

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@sbergman I think if you look a little further down the chapter, you could move several of the lessons to “homework”. @rpaulsen mentioned lesson 11 as one that students could do at home - lesson 13 is also one you could introduce in class after lesson 12 and ask students to finish cleaning data for homework.

Depending on how much you trust your students to do homework, unit 2 provides students with a few opportunities to do the work at home vs. in class.

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You really shouldn’t skip lesson 7, as the class data tracking is used in several more lessons. It’s an important one. Hope that helps! JR

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Thanks to all for the suggestions, but with teaching all seniors, and as a required course, I try to leave contentful work as classwork rather than HW.

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I’m in the same position. I am considering leaving some of Unit 3 for Winter homework. Most other Ap classes assign homework during the break.