Does anyone have any updated pacing guides from last school year (2018-2019) for a full year, block schedule (~80 minute, every other day) class? I’ve taught the course for two years now and still struggle to fit everything in without students (and myself) feeling rushed.
Year 1 (17-18): I tried what was suggested at TeacherCon, teaching Units 1-2-4-ET, then 3-5-CT, but the second semester was dreadful for students who weren’t super “into” programming, as that is all that it was.
Year 2 (18-19): Taught in the traditional order, 1-2-3, 4-ET-5-CT. It was better, but students had to complete one coding lesson per day, which, in some cases, was not reasonable if they didn’t have previous knowledge.
I’m more worried because for this upcoming year, I recruited heavily, both inside and outside of our IT Academy, therefore I have a more diverse group of students with less programming in their backgrounds. I anticipate not being able to push the students as quickly through Unit 3 and Unit 5 as I have the previous two years, so any suggestions for pacing would help.
**I’m open to reordering units or cutting particular lessons that aren’t super critical to student success. At this point, any up-to-date guidance would help!
Thank you!
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I’m in a similar boat with you. I’ve only taught the course for one year so far (going on two), but felt that I had a pretty successful flow while following experienced teachers’ advice to start with Unit 3 (because many students taking the class are excited to get into the programming portion) and to include the ET at the end of the first semester. So here’s what I ended up doing (also feeling rushed most of the time): 3,1,ET, then 5,CT with select important lessons from 2,4 as needed throughout the year to round out the standards. My biggest flaw I think, was not pushing my students hard enough and not planning out my year of lessons ahead of time. A great learning experience and a lot of things that worked well, and things that I’d change.
After checking a few related forum posts, I found this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MOu5qrQcN98H3MFoGwSr0YXZC-19tRi0QY6W88KoPjU/edit#gid=0
from this forum discussion: Pacing guide 2017-2018
I think I’ll change around just a few things, like ET at the end of the first semester, push the full Unit 4 to start at the beginning of the second semester, and cut a few lessons as needed on the fly. I haven’t decided whether or not to start my kids off with Unit 3 again or not. I think I’ll start with either Unit 3 or 1 based off the student roster and previous experiences.
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