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.