U4 Day 5-6: PD Discussion Topic
Differentiating between absolute and relative motion can be quite a confusing concept at first but when you act it out it can be very easy to understand. Go to means you go to a specific point while move means to move from where you currently are.
For students who are taking or have taken geometry it is a good chance to access prior knowledge about coordinates and play a coordinate game with the students so they understand that go to specifies a point while move is a translation of the character.
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Using the students to model the block movements would be neat, but playing a game of baseball in class would be more fun.
How would acting out the three moving blocks be helpful for students who might not pick up on the differences in the blocks?
Each actor in the performance is a discrete person, so a discrete action program would be needed.
What other strategies could you do with this lesson to help level the playing field for all students?
Have students describe the motions of a 2nd person using words and then deconstruct the motion(s) in to discrete commands.
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I think acting it out as a mystery could help check for understanding. I could give each student a “command” and see if other students could figure it out. Might be tricky and would have to set up some rules for what each block command could look like.
Just like when I taught programming, using Alice, act it out. Have the students actually physically practice the movement and then think about it.
Besides clarifying movement, acting it out can help students to understand iteration/looping.
I used some of the assessments for the students mid-term. 