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.
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.