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!