My students are struggling to figure out functions. They aren’t understanding the concepts. The unplugged activities confused them further. Any teaching ideas or unplugged ideas to help them?
@torri.egan
With this lesson, I found students struggled with the planning that required them to analyze first Then, plan, Then, code. Although the steps to create the diamond are broken down, I found them resistant to doing it that way.
Two things I tried:
- let them solve it the long way and develop the need for functions at their own pace.
- I made a rule of 10 - you couldn’t have any runs of code longer than 10 lines. After a bit, they seemed to plan ahead more instead of revising afterward. There was no magic about 10 lines. I would change the number for different situations or even to individual students as a challenge.
It would be great to hear what others have experienced and the strategies used.
Happy computing,
Andrea
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