Logistics
- Today
- Roll
- Partnerships
- Course introduction
- Success in this course
- Brief discussion of "programming"
code.org and getting started on the code.org course
- Wonderings/comments?
Course Introduction
Course Success
Our goal is to be successful? What does that mean? What can we do to make the course successful? (Discuss student responses to the following.)
- What does success look like? For you?
- What does success look like? For me?
- You achieved a level of programming ability that allows you to make informed choices about whether to program or to learn more programming.
- You learned enough programming to be willing to allow your students to try programming in your classes.
- You have a reasonable idea of how you might introduce your students to programming and kinds of activities you could use to do so.
- You feel that you could help students learn programming beyond what you presently know (or remember when the teaching occurs).
- You believe programming is (or is not) useful for your students to learn and have a good rationale for your belief. (The rationale should be based on what students can and need to learn in public schools and the basis for your conclusions.)
- What can you do to enhance the likelihood or degree of success?
- Attend class and think/question during presentations and discussion. (What is being said? Do I understand/does it make sense? Do I agree? ...)
- Ask questions when you don't understand/agree.
- Persist when I am too dense to see your point.
- Do all the assignments to the best of your ability.
- Seek help when you have difficulty on the assignments. (e-mail, office hours, classmates, ...)
- Try stuff beyond what is assigned or what you know.
- Think about assignments from the teacher's standpoint, e.g., it's goals, why/how it is useful, how it could be adapted, ...
- Wonder about how/whether programming is similar to or different from other content.
- Be curious.
- anything else?
- Anything else? Wonderings/comments?
Programming
The major focus of this course is programming, in a context conducive to the use and/or teaching of programming to K-8 students. So, ...
- What is programming?
Preparing a set of instructions for the computer to carry out.
Programming requires problem solving—it actually requires solving two problems at once. You must figure out how to solve the problem being asked and you must figure out how to make the computer solve the problem (write the program). Programming requires trouble-shooting (a different kind of problem solving—necessary when the program does not work as desired.
One learns to solve problems by solving problems. The more kinds of problems and problem solving one experience, the better one becomes at problem solving (in any context).
- Basic elements/aspects/skills/understandings of programming
- data & actions
- the basic actions allowed by the programming language—at least input, output, and manipulations of data
- simple data and collections of simple data representing the problem being solved
- operations on the data allowing for the desired manipulations
- control structures used to organize the actions
- sequence — putting actions in the desired/necessary order for accomplishing the task
- selection — choosing between two alternative actions (or between one action and no action)
- repetition — repeating actions with a looping instruction
- modularization — creating new instruction by grouping a set of actions, giving them a name, and using that name as a new instruction (to invoke the actions grouped together with the name)
- Anything else? Wonderings/comments?
Partnerships and Pair Programming
Most of the learning activity in this course is to be done in partnerships, in one case a group of three (or if an appropriate person is already familiar with programming, that person might be on their own). I want the pairing to occur primarily on the basis of preferred teaching grade level. The first step will be to have you indicate your preference about grade level on the white board. Which level, K-4 or 5-8 are you most interested in? Please print your name legibly on one of the two areas.
(When done, determine the group with the odd number of members and ask,) Anyone in this group already know programming?
Now, please standup and split yourself into groups on the side of the classroom where you name appears. Please look around in your group. I will record the levels and associated students and send out a message asking your preferences for or against pairings or triads within the group. From the information I receive back I will form the partnerships (probably Friday or over the weekend).
Wonderings/comments?
The code.org Course
The code.org learning activity introduces you to programming in a limited context. It doesn't have the freedom you'll eventually have. That should limit the complexity you encounter.
You are to complete the code.org course individually, i.e., each person logs in and does the work. You are, however, allowed/welcome to sit side by side with another person to work on it if you wish. It is important, however, that each person does all the coding on each lesson and follows along on the unplugged activities.
Bring up the code.org assignment. Have students signup, join my course at code.org, explore, and start work on the course.
Next Time:
- Work on code.org course
- To prepare for class:
- Sign up as a teacher with code.org if you have not already done so
- Join my class at code.org
- Begin work on the course
- Bring any questions to class
And final questions? comments? wonderings? . . . See you Thursday.
Day 2: Work on code.org Course
Logistics
Laptop Use in ITTC 328
If you have your own computer you can ignore this. If you need to use our laptops, please note the following.
- Go to the cabinet; pick a laptop unplug it; and note its location/number
- Return to your seat and open the lap top; if it doesn't light up, press the power button
- When it asks for a bit locker password, enter
compsci1
- When directed, press CTRL-ALT-DELETE and log into your UNI active directory, be patient
- Start up a web browser
- Start to work or ask a question
- DO ONLY CLASS STUFF!
- When done for the day, press CTRL-ALT-DELETE and log out
- Return the laptop to the cart, in the appropriate position, above its number, and plug it in
code.org Course Work
If you have questions, please ask. Work on the the course. Remember that you are expected to include this experience in your first programming activity and reflection report (PARR) assignment.
If you wish you may work side by side with a classmate (or partner) but both should be working on their own computer. Cooperate rather than copy!
Next Time
- Discussion RE
code.org course; Snap! introduction
- Before class, finish the
code.org course; Read Parts I & II of the Snap! Reference Manual
Questions? Comments? Wonderings? — See you Tuesday.
Day 3: code.org Experience, Partnering & Snap! Exploration
Logistics
- Roll
- Comments? Questions? Wonderings
code.org Experience
First, I'd like you to share any comments or questions you have. If you had trouble with a particular lesson or idea or set of lessons please let us know. Any and all questions will be appreciated. Reactions to the course are also welcome. So, Comments? Questions? Difficulties? Wonderings? Reactions? ...?
Next, I'd like to provide some prompts for you to discuss.
- Did you like anything about the course? What? Why?
- Anything you disliked about it? What? Why?
- Programming fundamentals addressed in the course
- What are the fundamentals?
- data and actions
- sequence/li>
- selection
- repetition
- modularization
- Can you provide an example of each that you encountered?
- Were any of them problematic for you? Which ones? How so?
- How are programming and computational thinking related?
- What are the elements of computational thinking? How are they useful?
- decomposition—breaking a problem into subproblems
- pattern location/recognition—seeing recurring activity or something similar to past experience
- abstraction—recognizing the essence of something and ignoring the details
- algorithms—plan for accomplishing a task (We develop algorithms before or as we program. A program is an algorithm understood by the computer.)
- Questions/comments about computational thinking?
- Did this seem like programming to you? If not, what do you think you were expecting?
- Anything you have liked to have seen/done that was not included? What? Why?
- Anything else you'd like to say or ask?
In my mind, the code.org course introduces programming and illustrates many aspects of it but the activity is more puzzle solving than programming. It doesn't quite give you the real feel of programming. Hopefully, that will change a bit with Snap!.
Partnering
Most of you have found partners, but some have not. What I (think I) have is:
- Partners
- Samantha Benisch & Erin Scroggin
- Lexie Bieber & Jenny Pedersen
- Kelli Bormann & Emily Spilman
- Shelby Bowersox & Kylie Brown
- Mady Feather & Drew Marchesani
- Meredith Gorman & Madie Moburg
- Hannah Harrison & Emily Rafson
- McKenna Heisdorffer & Emily Nickel
- Morgan Johnston & Nicole Reem
- Shania Koerber & Jessica Soukup
- Still unpaired
- Annika Amundson (L)
- Emma Juhnke (U)
- Kayla Kanellis (L)
- Sami Kleinwolterink (U)
- Daniel Larson (L)
- Grace Mills (L)
- Heather Pederson (L)
- Hope Polzin (U)
Have students identify themselves. Ask, "Any new partnerships?" Note that students have until the end of class to identify partners. Those unpaired at 5:00 pm today will be randomly assigned a partner (in same level group if possible).
Problem Solving and Programming
Programming is a problem solving activity. I tell students that when you are producing a program to solve a problem you have to solve two problems—the problem itself and producing a program that allows the computer to solve the problem. It is similar to some other activities. For example, when you want to write a research paper you have to: find all the information, decide how you want to organize it, etc. and then you have to actually write the paper, proofread and correct it, etc. (Ask: Can you think of other kinds of problem solving that are similar to these?)
My view of learning is that there are many contexts that involve or require problem solving. The way we make students into better general problem solvers is to present them with problems in a variety of different contexts (programming, report writing, devising science experiments, solving math "word" problems & puzzles, working on local social problems, etc.). As they work multiple problems in one context they get better in that context and their brain formulates some patterns of problem solving activity. When you present students with a new context, they don't naturally see the connection between the two contexts. But as they solve a bunch of problems in the new context, a set of patterns is developed for that context. Eventually, student brains will see the similarities in the patterns in each of the contexts and start formulating more general patterns. This can be helped by teachers/instruction by explicitly addressing the ideas of problem solving in the different contexts.
Teaching and Learning Programming
Remember that my goal for you is that you be able to support students as they program (develop programs). What might that involve? Perhaps:
- Determining whether our problem is solved—checking the answer (whether the program works correctly).
- Planning
- Debugging (when it doesn't work as desired)—work in a planful way
- before changing any code, work to understand how the current code is causing what is seen
- try something different only when you think you know what it will do
- try one thing at a time ... and change it back when it doesn't work
- use guess & check as a last resort and follow the above recommendations when using it
Also, you (and your students when you start teaching) should not spend more that 20-30 minutes trying to figure something out but making no progress. Avoid butting your head against the wall (for more that a little while :-). When this situation arises, try something different, e.g.,
- seek help from the teacher or a class-mate
- if they are not available, try to explain the problem to a friend or family member (often just talking through it allows you to see the problem)
- When all of that fails, walk away. Do something else for awhile. Come back to it later. (Your brain may work on it in the background while you are doing something else.)
Time Left?
If so, have students explore Snap!.
Next Time:
- Work on first Snap! assignment—Recount a fairy tale, myth, nursery rhyme, poem, etc. using Scratch.
- To prepare for the next class:
- Sign up at the Snap! site
- Finish reading Parts I & II of the Snap! Reference Manual
- Identify your program topic and plan what it should do
- Explore the Snap! environment
- all the icons at the top
- the costumes you might use in your program (you might choose to find images on the Web and import them into Snap!)
- the block/command palettes (Motion, Looks, Sound, Pen, Control, Sensing, Operators, Variables)
- anything else you are curious about
- Bring any questions to class
And final questions? comments? wonderings? . . . See you Thursday.