Days 18-20: Conditional logic in CSA

AP CSA
Wednesday and Thursday we did coding bat problems.  I know students can find the solutions online and some students are clearly not doing their own work.  I need to address what is academic dishonesty in CS.

On Friday we took a test.  I had posted practice quizzes on line.  When one student was done he said ¨that was just like the quiz online¨ - I havent been able to check their scores, but I am a bit nervous that some of the conditional logic tripped students up.  They wrote a lot of code, but did not read a lot of code in class - I will have to do more of that moving forward.  This is especially important for if-else statements because there are so many ways to do it - students can get into a rhythm for how THEY write their conditions, but they need to see multiple ways to get to the same outcomes.

AP CSP
Students worked on their ¨how the internet works project¨ for two days and then today we did the black and white pixelization widget activity.  Second hour went so much better than first, and I think there were a few things that caused it to go better:

• I did the typical ¨discovery¨ method with the tool.  I let them play around with it and then pulled out the key features of the tool together.  
• I made a padlet for people to share what they made - that forced every student AFTER the first to post to be more creative. 

Geometry
I keep going back and forth between guided practice and individual practice in this class.  I have done a lot of individual practice (via team practice).  I think trashketball will keep kids more accountable.

We are still working on vocab in geometry - that is slow going.

One Good Thing
Our first Lunch and Learn happened. 

Day 16 and 17: Impact statements and the spectrum

AP CSA
These two days we did pair programming tasks about Strings.  On day 16 we read a problem and developed a "reading flow chart" where students talked about what key things they would look for when reading the problem.

On day 17 I had students just write method headers for 3 different methods.  I probably should have done this a long time ago.  I think that practice back-to-back was helpful for students who were struggling. 

AP CSP
Monday we finished up our notebooks.  Then we did an "impact scale" where we went out to the commons.  I read some statements and students had to find a place on a scale from "agree" to "disagree"

Starter statements:

• Dark chocolate is better than milk chocolate
• School starts too early.
• In-person classes are better than online classes.

Technology statements:

• Social media makes people more social.
• The internet has made us smarter.
• Technology can be biased.
• Technology has made the world a better place to live.

It was good to start with some low-stakes statements and get the hang of the process - determine where you stand, talk to the person next to you (give examples/rationale for your reasoning), then share out in the big group.

On Tuesday we started the final project.

Geometry
We did this really great "draw what you read" worksheet in geometry on Monday.  It was good to see the variety of accurate (and inaccurate) drawings.  I am really trying to hit home vocab and diagrams in this unit.  On Tuesday I RAN through distance formula and midpoint formula.  There is this really great midpoint task I want to do, but I also know the focus is on vocab and diagrams.

Tomorrow I want to do a Kahoot and a bit more diagram practice.

Also, I introduced popsicle sticks in geometry.  It was a good move.  Too many students are "opting out" of participation.  I am having a ton of doodlers which is fine if they are learning, but I haven't seen evidence of that.

One Good Thing
I LOVE seeing students high-five each other during pair programming in a "non forced" way.  It is so fun to see them engage with one another.  Today a teacher came to observe me and said she was impressed with the conversations happening between students where they were explaining their reasoning.  I always appreciate having visitors because it gives me a fresh perspective on my practice.

Day 15: Interactive notebooks

AP CSA
Students worked on Practice It in class.  I had about 8 students finish it at home for "fun".  This is such weird class to me :)

I told them they could use that time to relax or start working ahead on some String problems.  Most of them choose to work on String problems.  Goofballs.

I also had plenty of students who had trouble just reading the assignment.  I did model this but it didn't really stick.  I could (and should) give them a framework to help with the reading.  Maybe a flow chart like this:

1. What is it asking you to write (a method, a class, a statement)?
2. If it requires writing a method
1. Are there any parameters for this method?
1. How many?
2. What type is the parameter(s)?
2. Does the method return any thing?
1. What type of thing does it return?
3. If it requires writing a class...
1. What fields are there
2. What constructors are required
3. What methods are required

Any way, I circulated and helped students troubleshoot which really consisted of me finding missing curly brackets and misspellings along with helping them read the directions. 

Another issue that came up was the role of a "return" - many times their programs got rejected because they had a series of if statements with returns inside and no return overall for the method.

AP CSP

We added things to our notebooks today.  I wonder how students feel about notebook days.  To me they could feel really comfortable because they just need to follow directions and make connections to in class activities, OR they might feel really boring.  

Any way, next week we are going to do our "how the internet works" project.  From there I have to decide if I want to do some programming or go straight into unit 2.  I have a visitor coming to class on the 16th so I need to figure out what we are going to do then. 

Geometry

Gave an algebra gateway today - about 7 students got 9/10 which is considered a "passing" score - we are looking for mastery since it is basic algebra problems (solve for x-type of things).   I also have TONS of students not doing homework.  Too many really.  I am going to move to checking homework daily which will also help me build connections with students, I believe.

One Good Thing

One of my former CSP students (now CSA students) had AppLab open.  I asked him what he was doing and he said, "we are trying to get this to work..." they had created a project with a database last year but never quite got it to work.  Now they wanted to give it another chance.

Day 14: Checking in

Ok, so I missed a few in there.  Back on it though.

AP CSA
Looking back at last year, it was a rocky start.  This year, I feel like I know what my students' dont know which is a blessing and a curse.  I am realizing I am taking for granted a lot of the things that are BRAND NEW to students.

The start in processing was good over all, the switch to BlueJ is a little rocky.  At the same time we switched to BlueJ, I introduced functions and I think students think BlueJ is bad because functions are confusing, but honestly their Processing code was a hot mess without functions.  So... maybe I need to go back there and connect some dots for students.

Like last year, I am pushing our first test back a bit.  At this point, we have covered simple conditionals, the math class, and today we did some String methods.  Students are working in PracticeIt and struggling a bit with the exercises.  Looking back at last year, the self-checks are probably necessary to be little confidence boosters for students.

I have had like 6 kids drop from my larger class of (formerly) 36 students.  None from my smaller class of 25 students.  Funny how that works.  Unfortunately, even being down 6 kids in my large class has helped make supporting students easier.  It makes me sad that 6 students had to experience failure for me to be able to help the other students.  I wish our class sizes were smaller.

Having rid the class from the "flipped" mode, I am finding instruction tricky - we do a lot of code alongs, but the table IMMEDIATELY in front of me is the table that gets all the attention.  I really need to either A) Get mobile with a laptop or B) get a standing desk.

I am also learning I am getting really good at debugging - there is tons of mis-capitalization and missing curly brackets.  That's essentially 99% of the mistakes.

AP CSP
Today we did the DDoS attack lesson.  It went fine - I added the HTTP lesson in on the same day.  My faciltiator skills are coming in handy in these classes.  I have one class that LOVES to journal and another that LOVES to talk.  We make it work - first hour is journaling constantly, second hour is talking constantly.  Love it.

Geometry
I feel a bit like a first year teacher with this group again.  I tried getting away from cold calling, but it isn't working.  SO, my new plan is to do popsicle sticks but the plan is that I only use them AFTER they have had a chance to talk to their neighbor.   The turn and talks aren't being productive now, and I think having greater accountability will help them be a bit more productive.

Also in geometry today, I gave students work time which was MASSIVELY wasted by some students.  That made me really mad because I eliminated my plans to give students time to work together and instead they wasted it.  New plan for that is that students need to stay in their seats during work time.

One Good Thing
Teaching CSP feels like home to me. 

Day 4: Starting content

AP CSA
We did another pair programming activity with even less direction.  Some students really hit a frustration point and were spinning their wheels more than I liked.  In the future, I need to probably provide more structure for this day.  They had to read documentation for random() and mouseX and mouseY and use that in their code.

I am really struck by how many students have previous knowledge in this class this year.  It is pretty extreme (or maybe I am more aware of it this year since I know a lot of the students).  I feel like I need to address this gap somehow but with 3 preps already I don't think I can really make "two tracks" for students here.

AP CSP
We started the internet simulator today. It went fast.  In my first hour, some students insisted they couldn't do it - they didn't know how.  In my second class, I reminded them that they might get stuck and they needed to practice our class norm of "try something" (which is my re-wording of "take risks" - "try something" sounds a bit more accessible to students).  It went better in my second hour.  The class went about 10 minute short.

Geometry

Loved this lesson with geo sticks! Had Ss make as mavy triangles as they could and then they sorted them into categories however they felt was best. Every category needed a description. Then we pulled out vocabulary. #mtbos pic.twitter.com/YiAOoq0WiP

— Kaitie O'Bryan (@Kaitie_Obryan) September 7, 2018

Days 1, 2, and 3: Opening week - year 6

One of the best things I did last year was keep a daily blog of what was happening.  I intend to repeat that this year.  I am also trying to make things tweets whenever possible and embed them here.

Day 1:

Day 1: freshmen only so I played “thirty one-derful” with students. Good low floor, high ceiling task for students that focuses on problem solving. Here’s the solution we got... an extension could be “how many ‘solutions’ are there”? #teach180 #iTeachCs #iTeachMath pic.twitter.com/aXL6dgKK0S

— Kaitie O'Bryan (@Kaitie_Obryan) September 4, 2018

Day 2:  Team building.  

This was "real day 1".  Next year I think I should just keep all day 1 activities the same for everything - my goals are always the same - to build collaborative problem solving skills and mentalities.  But this year I did everything different.

AP CSA
We did the paper airplane folding activity which went pretty well.  It get's so loud but student shave fun and work with one another.  Then students filled out a "get to know you survey"

AP CSP
We did the puzzle activity and then brainstormed answers to the questions "What behaviors/attudes helped you be successful in this task?" and "What would you do differently a second time around?"  Students put their post-it note answers to the question up on the whiteboard.

There a were a lot of post-its that mentioned "communication" as being a good/necessary thing, so together we unpacked what "good communication" actually looks like.

THEN, I overheard a student said they were frustrated in the task so the second hour we also did an activity where I read off emtions such as happy, frustrated, irritated, annoyed, accomplished, motivated, bored and students stood up when they felt like they experienced that emotion during the task.  I think this was a mini-connection to mindfulness and also lead nicely into talking about the bullseye of comfort which I feel like is SUPER relevant for CS.

I also used Sara VanDerWerf's name plates in this class - they really help me get names down.  Also, it reminded me that I needed to MODEL what a name plate looks like.  Students in my first class just wrote things about themselves which is fine, but less memorable and actually wrote very boring things like (I have a dog)... second hour when I modeled it, it got a lot better!

Geometry
This was a really quiet group.  We did Sara's number task but students were DEAD SILENT.  When we talked about what collaborative group work looks like, there really wasn't much they said.  I got out the inquiry cubes in an impromptu move.  That kinda helped with communication but they still feel really uncomfortable together.

Day 3: Starting some content

Normally I want to take all week for team building but I think students want to do some content earlier on.  I wanted to make the content relevant but also light.  This was the result.

AP CSA
We started Processing today.  I did Terrence's "pair programming warm up" and it was brilliant!  Students loved it and it totally modeled what I wanted it to.  Also, it was a real team builder between the pairs!

To do this, I had students think of an animal individually and then say that animal out loud to their partner on the count of 3.  Then they needed to draw that animal pair programming style - switching who was "driving" (in this case "drawing") every 45 seconds.  Here were some of the results.

Then we looked at the Processing reference for rect().  I asked students to write down 3 things they noiced and 2 questions they had.  Then I pulled out some key vocabulary, including the following:

• Reference/Documentation
• Method/function
• Parameter
• Data Types (floats)
• Syntax

Those all show up in the documentation.  I gave them a pretty straighforward section of code from Processing and asked them to fill in the missing comments.  I also introduced the idea of commenting at that time!  Together we decided what would make up a "good comment" for that space.

We talked about the orientation of the canvas as well and then I asked them to change the color of the rectangle, at which point we talked about RGB colors.

It was a crash course, but no one seemed too overwhelmed.  

At that point I had them do "pair programming" with "Processing Scavengar Hunt".  I had 3 minute intervals, but I think I could have made it longer.  Most students finished task 1, but not task 2.

The pair programming was WONDERFUL!  It took some of the work off me and there was TONS of collaboration.  Lots of talk and problem solving and a lot less stress for students.  They didn't feel like they were competing against eachother for speed but rather working together.   I am wondering when it makes sense to use this technique in class and when solo-programming is a good idea?

AP CSP

I decided to do the "Sending Binary Messages" task today.  It really is a low floor culture builder and it sneaks in content.  I added the twist of "you need to use 2 things" to build your device but I didn't like it.  It did force students to be more creative in building their devices but I got a lot of images of things.  I like scaffolding what students I have share, but it was hard since everyone had a "you just add more stuff to your device" method.   It still got the job done...

I didn't take any pictures since of my strict no-phones policy... but there were lots of intersting devices!

Geometry

I did a "math fight" for warm up on order of operations and the 4 4s task for practicing order of operations. 

Both were good... students talked a lot more on the 4 4s.  I then gave them a "practice solving equations" worksheet which highlighted some gaps.  I don't know if I go back and do more of that OR if I should embed that into some of the geometry we have planned for tomorrow...