D124 and 125: All the AP

AP CSA

124: AP test registration.  One hour dedicated to students bubbling in things.  I should have assigned some homework for students who did this in their previous classes.

125: We started AP Test prep on RSI.  Doing the multiple choice prep seems to be good.  Students are making mistakes, they are looking back at their notes and comparing answers with friends.  It seemed like they finished 20 problems really quickly.  I think the 90 minute practice test next week will give more insight.


AP CSP

124: Hour 6 of Create Task.  I gave students a form to fill out on their progress so far.  I asked them to estimate how many more hours they would need for the programming part of the task which was helpful.

125: Hour 7 of Create Task.  Students are making progress.


Concepts

124: We did a practice worksheet and sent our emails to our mentors.

125: Took the quiz on rational functions.  I feel pretty good with how the unit went.  We did do a lot of repetitive practice - there isn't a ton of application to do here, it is mostly theoretical "what happens if..." sorts of practice.


One Good Thing
Doing the eMentors program has been really great.  Students are taking it pretty seriously and it is forcing them to write more.

123: AP Test Prep Begins

AP CSA
We are starting AP test prep today.  My goal is to make it a mix of FRQ practice, Multiple Choice practice, interactive activities, and mini-lectures.

Today we kicked it off with a mindmapping activity.  Some students did really well with it.  I started with asking students what they had learned this year and then we popcorned it out.  From there they grabbed materials and started their mind map.

About 20 minutes in I handed them a half sheet with random vocab on them to spark some more thoughts.  That flow went really well.

Here were some of the products.

AP CSP

Create tasks are being worked on.  It is exciting to see what students come up with.

Concepts

We did one rational function problem and then wrote e-mails to our eMentors.

Days 118 - 122: Starting the Create

AP CSA

This week we did a mini-unit on sorting and searching.  It was 4 days long with a test on the 5th day.  The first day was fun... the rest was a snooze.  I think next year I need to add a run-time analysis on the sorting algorithms on the 2nd day.  I think students were somewhat confused why we were doing this.  TBH, it seems like a reason to practice tracing code... it was a lot of tracing code.

On the first day we did the sorting egg activity as inspired by Rebecca Dovi.  I made half sheets for each of the sorts so that students had some sort of guiding question.  After we were done with this, I had students share their "3-word description" of how the algorithm accomplished the task which lead into a nice introduction of vocabulary.  Taking one from ABC-CBV (Activity Before Concept - Concept Before Vocabulary).

I think next time I would try to make all the same color so it is less obvious the order the eggs should be in.  I even switched up the cartons every once in a while so students had a new set of items to re-arrange.  That kept students focused on the task a bit more - without that, I think they would have "skipped" the acting it out part and moved to just answering the questions on the sheet.

From there we did an interactive notebook activity.  Once again, I LOVE these - students throughout the week pulled them out too.  That tells me they find them useful.

From there, we did a day of tracing code and one day of random FRQs.  The day of FRQs was rocky, but it showed me I need to do a mini-review of content before doing FRQs - it is actually a nice way to show students what a "real life" AP question looks like with that content.

AP CSP

We worked on the Create all week this week - four total hours!

Concepts

We started rational functions.  Did desmos.  I love rational functions!  Students seem to be picking it up pretty nicely.

One Good Thing

We have been having a conversation about mental health, and I realize my go-to is to look at reducing homework for students, but really if I can come in with a calmer and happier disposition to teaching and learning, that might have a bigger impact on student mental health - and my own TBH.

D110: More ethics

Obligatory blog post here.

CSA - Multiple choice test on 2D arrays.  It took longer than I thought.

CSP - Ethics conversation day 3

Concepts - Trashketball review on trig

One Good Thing
I really appreciate that our department eats lunch together.  It makes it so much easier to communicate and keep a pulse on what is going on.  I know that is not the norm everywhere.

D109: FRQ and Ethics

Deja Vu today.

AP CSA
After noticing that students were doing really well in groups, I had them try an FRQ by themselves in 22.5 minutes.  Silent work time. 

Some students finished early and then were on their phones.  I wish I would have had a separate worksheet or activity for them to do when they were done.

But for the most part, it went pretty well.  Students seem to be getting hang of the FRQ style of things.

AP CSP
I did day 2 of ethics study.  I am going to write up a larger blog about this elsewhere.  Then we went over their test.

I think I freaked out some students about the multiple choice test.  It was hard, but honestly, probably harder than what they will see on the AP test. 

Concepts
We finished working on the trig packet.  We are going to do to trashketball on Monday, followed by a quiz, followed by 2 days of ACT practice.  I think this is the first time I have planned out the class for a full week.

One Good Thing
I was at a meeting with a student the other day who has a great amount of social sway over one of my classes.  I told him that with great power comes great responsibility.  Today he was the "model" responsible student and kept everyone on task.  It was wonderful

D108: FRQ and Ethics

AP CSA
Today students did the 2017 and 2016 FRQs on 2D arrays.  It showed that we are pretty close to getting to where we need to be, but not there yet.  Collaboratively, students were pretty much at 100% accuracy with missing the key word "new"

AP CSP
We did a short ethics conversation based on the facebook breech and then we took a quiz.  It took students about a half hour to do the quiz which was all JavaScript loops and Arrays.

Concepts
We went back to Trig today and did a packet on that.  We are going to finish the packet tomorrow.

One Good Thing
The ethics conversation went well.  I am always nervous about it.  I am going to add perhaps articles about how Obama used data too. 

D107: "Survey Says..." thoughts on pacing

AP CSA
Well today I gave a mini quiz on arrays - it went fairly well.  Today was also our last day to work on our Processing project. 

I gave students a rubric that went up to a "C" and everything else was "pizzaz points".  I learned this from another teacher I met at a code.org workshop.  I liked the idea because it sets a high ceiling. I know I need students to work on CS the whole time.  That needs to be a norm.  But here are some dilemmas with that:

1. Some students go work at home.  And that's fine - it is cool that they want to work at home, but I still need them to come to class, still working.  It ruins the culture when I have some students who are "done".
2. Being done means different things to different students.  Some students are trying their hardest and BARELY have the basics.  That's fine with me.  They are learning and struggling very productively.  Other students are really taking on big challenges with some pretty great successes.  That's fine with me too.  I know we want all students to get to the "same place" but dragging students to the finish line seems harmful.  This allows each student to be challenged in their ZPD. 

Some students HATE the "pizzaz points".  I get it.  They want to know how to get their A.  It feels arbitrary to them.  But I need them to work and challenge themselves.  If I set an A, I set a ceiling.  I don't know how to fix that. 

AP CSP

Students are finishing up their image scroller apps.  It is a good way to gauge who has a good handle on this content.  There is a lot to the task. 

I was trying to figure out where to go next so I asked the group. 

It seemed like there was a lot of off-task behavior, I so I wanted to have students self-report their on-task behavior.  Here were the results:

I think this data is fine, but I am hoping that the students on the "2" side realize that they were in part at fault here.  1 was "I haven't done anything" and a 5 was "I have been 100% on task".

From a pacing perspective, these were the results:

This was mostly good news.  I was concerned I was going too fast, but most students are reporting it is going at a reasonable pace.  I can also now focus on the 10 students reporting it is going a little fast.  I can make sure that we have something for those students. 

Finally, I asked them what they wanted to do next.  Their three major options were:

1. Have a new task that requires you to use code you already learned, with familiar user interface elements
2. Have a new task that requires you to use code you already learned, but use new user interface elements
3. Have a new task that requires you to learn new code, with familiar user interface elements

It is perhaps not surprising that students what to stay with the same content.  So, that's what we are going to do.  I am also going to provide student choices to do something that involves new content for students who are curious. 

Concepts

We reviewed the ACT responses today.  I had students correct half of their wrong answers.  Amazingly, many students got questions wrong that they EASILY were able to fix.  I don't get why students just guess on their ACT questions.  I think they are just avoiding work.  It is easier to guess and then sit there for the rest of the time.  I am going to try trashketball to re-engage them later.  Some students are making the most of the opportunity, others' are not. 

One Good Thing

I am so glad I did this project in CSA.  It really showed me that THIS is teaching CS - there is no one right way to do this.  Each student has a different idea and a different solution.  I feel better about that than how most my labs work...

D105 and D106: Welcome back from spring break

AP CSA

105: The first day back from spring break I talked a bit about jagged arrays and for-each loops in 2D arrays.  Then students did a few practice it problems to wipe off a few cob webs.

106: We started back on our Procecssing project.  I think next year I cannot do a project over break.  Students could not remember what they were working on or how it fit together.  It did make a good case for commenting code though!

AP CSP

105 and 106: I returned student's write up of the algorithm for the practice create to them.  A lot of students are putting event handlers inside functions or not understanding the rubric.  It makes me happy that we got that out of the way though.  We certainly need to do a bit more practice before doing the create. 

I have several students who are falling FAR behind.  I have been spot checking their progress on key stages like 15.15 and 16.8 which helps hold students accountable.

Today we are going back and doing 14 since I think that is a great performance-y task for students to really pay attention to detail and show that they can combine several ideas. 

I am thinking we will do one more project based assessment at the end here before doing the create task.

Concepts
105: We started back at class with doing some geometric Islamic drawings.  I wanted to give students a task that was different than what they have done before but still focused on some skills I want to develop like attention to detail and sense making.

106: We are in crunch time to the ACT so we did a practice ACT today and will go over the answers tomorrow.  I think I will make a trashketball activity for the next week just to mix it up a bit

One Good Thing
Students helping students.  I am thankful I have some students who are willing to help out and can do so in a non-condescending way.

D101: Practicing reading AP questions

AP CSA

On day 100 we made a little tri-fold on the difference between interfaces, concrete classes and abstract classes.  I should have put abstract classes in the middle but it helped organize the thinking a bit.

AP CSP

We did a peer review today on the hangman projects.  I messed this up.  I needed to do some norming around giving feedback.  I also don't know how to incorporate feedback.  Students are so reluctant to share their work before they are "done" but at the same time, they need to hear this feedback and make improvements.  I am not really sure how to do this in a timely way.

Concepts
We did a practice ACT today.  Again, I need to do a better job of prepping kids for this.  I gave students back their old ACT and asked them to answer the questions "Is the ACT important? Why or why not?" and "What do you want to do after high school?"

For the most part every student said the ACT was important if you wanted to go to college.  Not every student wanted to go to college but a good 80% did.  After that, we took the test, students took it a lot more seriously.   I need to do this again next year.

One Good Thing
I ran into a former student at my rock climbing gym the other day.  I had him as a senior in pre-calc.  In a school where some students feel "behind" because they will not get through Calc 2 by the end of their time in high school, he wasn't super accelerated.  Here's the cool part - he is a math major at the U in his senior year!  It goes to show, being super accelerated doesn't always open more doors, in fact, it might close doors if you are accelerated too much.

D95: Project Based Learning

AP CSA

Another lab day working on the customer lab.  A student toldl me that they are getting it now!  They went back to work on the Structured Lab and it was really “clicking” for them. 

Half the class was gone for the AMC test but it was good to sit with students as they worked.

AP CSP

I am making stage 13 homework for students.  It is SO scaffolded, I think they can do it at home and watching them do it is a bit painful. 

I made a project inspired by a project a former student made.  Students needed to make a hangman game.  I demoed the former students’ project in class, but I probably wouldn’t do that again – students just copied the format she had.  I think the major win in the task was asking students to give it a “theme”.   Here is the copy of the task.

My goal in doing this task was to get students to see the use of an array.  BUT I think some side-benefits are also coming out.

• I wanted to shift more time to planning out student work.  I have learned that I don't do enough of this after being observed and also after attending my grad class, AND conferences this week, I am realizing forcing students to spend more time planning is a good thing. 
• Using substring methods.  I thought students got this in the Movie Bot lab, but that knowledge is clearly stale now. 
• AP test practice! I am having students create an algorithm with two other algorithms inside it.  We will be writing about this too. 

Concepts

Energy was high - too high, today in concepts.  We did the "Price is Right" expected value problem today.  I suppose we didn't calculate the "expected value" but we did calculate what the individual should do or not do in the situation.  It was a good "intro" to probability activity, I would do it again for sure.  

The second half of class we continued on the "fair hopper" activity.  I asked students to design their own "Fair Hopper" which some students put some real time into and others' did not.   It would be good to hold students more accountable to these activities.  

One Good Thing
A student teacher in the building came to observe me today in concepts.  It is always so great to get a fresh perspective on my classroom.  She sent me some of her notes afterwards which was actually affirming.  Sometimes I feel like my list of classes to teach is too long this year, but her notes re-affirmed that some of the "teacher moves" I have worked hard to develop have become instincts.  Things like writing all the answers on the board that students give - even the wrong ones, and making students justify their thinking were things she noticed.  I am glad those were apparent and to be honest, I don't necessarily THINK about doing those things any more, it is just more natural.

D94: I MADE a lab!

AP CSA

This might sound crazy, but I think I haven't really CREATED my own labs at all this year.  It has all been using A+ materials, figuring them out, and then doing them. 

I haven't been super impressed by their labs but they get the job done - they are a bit dull and don't provide a ton of context/direction.

This is why I was excited about the lab I made.  I used a "structured lab" earlier in this unit that I really liked.  I don't think I really understood how it all worked until I did it.

I had a "station" in my activities that felt like it could be a much bigger task, so I made it into a lab.

We started it in class today and I think it really helped students understand the following:

• how and when to use super constructors
• how to use super in other code (like the toString methods)
• how to class cast for methods like equals or compare to
• how you can use inheritance AND interfaces

We are going to take one more day to do this, but then I think we are ready to test.  These structured labs have been super helpful.

AP CSP

I did an interactive notebook on arrays.  I need to do more of this next year. 

Concepts

We played the "Fair Hopper" game which went really well.  Students had really good reasoning about why the game was unfair.

One good thing

Having another hour in my day to plan has been a game-changer.  I am able to so much better plan for all my classes. 

D93: Stations - adapted for CSA

AP CSA

I am having trouble figuring out how to teach these big design ideas in the class.  These are all big ideas that are implemented in big projects so it is hard to do repetition at all since it is so big.

It seems like UML, hierarchy diagrams, and method output tables are all great ways to help students read code that uses inheritance and polymorphism. But it is tough to have students CREATE code themselves that use these ideas.

I made a station activity for these ideas which took forever to create, but was helpful.

I had a few different types of activities.  The "Create a UML diagram" one was a bit much for students (and even for myself).  It became a bit of a handwriting exercise. 

There were also two "trace code and predict output" activities which were really strong - students enjoyed the chance to get practice.  I would like to develop more of these.  Honestly, it would be good to make 8 of these and then I think the stations activity would work better.  I didn't have any method output tables, but I think doing some of those would be awesome too.

Additionally I had two "creative" tasks where students needed to create a heirachy diagram for a situation.  For example, a hierarchy diagram for animals or sports.  Students stayed away from this - I think it seemed like too much work for students - they didn't like the idea of "being creative" or "making a poster".  I think it seemed too abstract on it's face.  Students who choose to do it did a great job through.

Next year, I think I would make these "creative" tasks a whiteboard activity and have students walk around and add to others' whiteboards to add other methods or classes that could be child classes from a parent class.

AP CSP
Explore day.  I love the check-off list.  That's a game changer.

Concepts
Quiz day. 

One Good Thing
I met with the MS computer science teachers yesterday.  We talked about the need to be more project based in our teaching of CS. 

D92: Cleaning up the mess left behind

AP CSA
Students took a quiz on interfaces that was a mixed bag.  It is clear they know how to implement an interface but to have a method pass a parameter of another object type was a hot mess.  I asked them to use the comparable interface, but that did not go well.

SO... today became the day that I cleaned up the remnants that I didn't get before.  We talked about:

• The key word this - which I really should have covered when I introduced methods in the fall.  There is no harm in holding out for latter, but it is something they should have by now.
• We looked deeper at the Comparable interface - I showed them that to TRULY implement the interface they need to have a method that takes in a parameter of type Object.  That means you need to cast the object to match the class that is using the interface.
• toString - this is also something I should have talked more about in the fall.  Not every student got why having a toString method is nice and that they can put whatever they want in there. 
• Heirarchy diagrams - something we touched on in UML diagrams, but probably could have been put earlier in the unit.
• Method output tables - again, probably something we could have done a day or two earlier.  They were super helpful.

The rest of the time was for PracticeIt which was a bit glitchy.  I am still thinking the best way to practice this content is to actually do unplugged activities and more diagraming.

AP CSP

I handed back students quizzes on variables.  They went pretty well - I was actually surprised - I was expecting it to go way worse.  

The rest of the time was for the Explore task.

Concepts

We talked about conditional probability today and did a quick worksheet. 

One Good Thing

I found out that two of my students will be recognized as NCWIT students.  That is exciting!