So we are about to finish Unit 3. I am going to be starting them on the final project tomorrow. I am wondering if there are any suggestions for what I can do with about 4-5 more 1.5 class periods. I am trying to decide if I should just skip Unit 4 and try to get them through as much of Unit 5 as possible. Or do I give them a few days of each unit. I am going to be gone 2 of the days unfortunately one of those days should be a work day on the final project. I was thinking maybe Unit 4 one of those lessons is easier to have them do on their own when a sub is there.
I would suggest move onto Unit 4. My students had most interest in scratch during unit 4. The final project was to make their own game in scratch, brought back a lot of childhood memory from the students. Unit 4 you can accommodate the final project (can also be counted as finals) depending on how far you get through the unit.
Unit 4 is Big Data & Privacy. It’s Unit 5 where the actual coding happens. After teaching this course, I feel that waiting so long before the students do some real coding is a significant weakness. My students have been chafing at the bit to begin writing their own code. I actually leap-frogged Unit 4 and went right from Unit 3 to Unit 5, then went back to do Unit 4. If you only have a few classes left, I suggest going right to Unit 5. The coding is elementary and won;t be over the student’s heads. There is nothing in Unit 4 that prepares students for Unit 5 that I could see. I encouraged students to skip right to Code View in the online exercises and to eschew the default block coding so they could get more of the experience of writing actual code. the activities are so tightly scripted that almost any student can work through them at their own pace. I even had a couple of students who went through almost all the Unit 5 lessons on their own, the first weekend, so they could work on other coding projects during class time.
Thanks for the suggestions so far guys. Now my question is how do I allow them to see the next units. It looks like you can only make 1 unit available at a time. If I switch it to the other unit will they lose access to unit 3 then and will their progress then be lost to. I am very nervous now about this.
