I have fallen in love with Google forms. I never thought of them as something you would use to conduct formative assessment until this past weekend.  We had our bi-annual CS Principles meeting, and the presenters integrated several 1 - 2 question surveys for us to complete and provide feedback. It was quick and easy!  It is Tuesday, and I have already created 5 forms for my students to fill out.  It has provided me with very quick feedback on what my students are thinking, at what stage of learning they are at, misconceptions that they have, how they are working in groups, what stage their project is in, and most importantly, what they think of my class today!  It is shaping how I present my next class and changing the way I teach.  Excellent tool.

I wanted to share the results of one of the surveys I provided to my CSP students. The survey that students participated in this morning had 2 questions.  

• What was your favorite topic, project or activity we did this year? 
  
• Why was that your favorite? 
  

I really only had 1 negative response, and I am affirmed by the number of students who's favorite topic or project involved some kind of programming. 

Just wanted to take some time for my own personal reflection on this course, and my approach to it this year.  Like with all new curriculum, this is truly a growing year.  The grand plans that I had in August, have been implemented with mixed results.  And I don't mind admitting, that next year, when I have a chance to do it all again... I will do it all differently. 

I believe the primary difficulty I am having with this class is that I have tried to compartmentalize the course, and put broad stroke topics (the Big ideas) into units.  They are called BIG ideas for a reason. They don't fit nicely into units.  I have come to realize that it will be better to teach this course utilizing the BIG ideas in all the units.  My approach next year will be a programming approach where the big ideas take on a role in each unit. 

I'm thinking that I will start the year with a unit that focuses on algorithms and writing programs on paper using flowcharts and pseudocode. Providing students an opportunity to explore advance topics without the limitation of a language.  Students often lack problem solving experience.  Devoting a unit to problem solving and algorithms will allow us to continue to utilize these skills as we explore current technology and break down how it works.  This will also prepare students for their performance tasks.  Through this unit, we can apply the Big ideas by studying current technology and how it relates to the Big ideas.  What is the algorithm? How does it use the internet? How does it incorporate data? What abstractions are present? What creative ideas do students have to extend and make this technology better? What problems do they see with this technology and what creative solutions do they have? What impact does this technology have on society? 

Many of my students were disappointed with the first half of the school year. This course was marketed as a programming course, and when we didn't do any programming for the first 1/2 of the semester, they were understandably chomping at the bit. When we moved into Alice 3.0 they were a little bit more satisfied, but it wasn't until we started working Java that they let go of the resentful feelings they had toward my course. My model of CS Principles through programming may not work at every school.  In my district students are exposed to programming during middle school. We have elementary and middle school clubs that are working on programming and robotics. These students are already sold on programming and are eager to expand what they have learned. By not taking a programming approach I fear that I will lose student interest, rather than build interest and build a strong CS program. 

I welcome your response as to your approach to CS Principles and how it is working. And ... as for next year... I'll let you know. 

Crystal

 

When I enter a classroom, one of the first things I notice are posters and wall decoration.  In math classrooms, you will see instructional posters with formulas or shapes  and the order of operations.  You may also see inspirational posters about determination or cool math patterns seen in the world.  In a language arts classroom you will see posters on verbs and nouns, facts and opinions, and cause and effect.  In a foreign language classroom there are posters that labeling the classroom with the equivalent foreign language word.  These posters act as visual reminders and clue for students.  With a class that requires students to assimilate a ton of new vocabulary as well as remembering programming structure, a few posters may be helpful.  

Look for posters on computer science, and they are few and far between. Mainly I find posters on hardware or inspirational posters about careers. These are great.  But I want posters on what I'm teaching.  I want posters that show examples of lines of code.  I want specifically... Java posters. 

So, I've taken my classroom back to elementary school. Besides, we are teaching students everything they need to know about programming and many have no prior knowledge. A little like elementary school.  Walk into any elementary classroom, and there is not a bare spot on the wall. The walls are covered in clues that help students learn the new material.  My classroom is becoming much the same. I purchased large posters that resemble notebook paper and developed a basic class outline for students to follow.  I purchased some wide sentence strips that allowed me to write a single line statements such as how to create an instance of an object or to list the primitive data types. 

The feedback from my students has been very positive. They don't have to dig through their notes to find the structure of something we just learned, and over time, they stop having to look at the posters, and just know the material. I have inspirational posters in my room as well, but these instructional posters, truly let people know what we do in my room.  We aren't just playing games, or making PowerPoint presentations, we are writing programming code.

My students have completed the first of 3 performance assessments that are required during the CS Principles pilot.  The performance task is called Explore.  In this task, students investigate an innovation looking at several aspects: impact of the innovation: social, cultural or economic, the algorithm for how it works, and any abstractions that are applied. Students also create an artifact that represents the innovation and its impact. 

In preparing my students to complete this task they completed a history project. Each student was assigned a person of significance in the computer science community from Ada Lovelace to Mark Zuckerberg. They researched the persons' innovation as developed an infographic that represented the positive and negative social impact of the innovation. This is very much what students needed to do for the PT Explore piece.  Students struggled with seeing the negative of the innovation. They are so in love with technology, it is hard for them to recognize, for example, that they are more sedentary because they play video games instead of playing outside. Many students had an easier time with Facebook, because unfortunately they have seen first hand the effects of cyberbullying. In addition to creating an infographic, students had to write a paper about their person. 

What I found extremely interesting when looking at their projects and grading them is how much better students answered the questions when they didn't try to write an essay. When students answered the questions individually, their answers were more focused and they were less likely to skip a question. It made grading much easier too. For future performance tasks, I will be recommending students not try to write an essay. 

My students also had difficulty with creating an artifact that addressed the question.  I don't believe the directions were as clear as they could have been. The development committee has since addressed this and have release a new version that clearly states what they need to do for the artifact. I applaud the development committee for so quickly addressing this issue. 

Performance tasks can be found at csprinciples.org.