Warm Up: Preview Programming in Maze (3 min)

To finish the connection, preview an online puzzle (or two) as a class.

Model: Reveal an entire online puzzle from the progression to come. We recommend Puzzle 5. Do they see any similarities to the exercise that they just did? What are the big differences?

Work with your class to drag code into the workspace in such a way that the bird (eventually) gets to the pig.

Transition: Students should now be ready to transition to computers to complete online puzzles on their own.

Main Activity (30 min)

Online Puzzles

Circulate: Teachers play a vital role in computer science education and supporting a collaborative and vibrant classroom environment. During online activities, the role of the teacher is primarily one of encouragement and support. Online lessons are meant to be student-centered, so teachers should avoid stepping in when students get stuck. Some ideas on how to do this are:

• Utilize Pair Programming - Student Video whenever possible
• Encourage students with questions/challenges to start by asking their partner
• Unanswered questions can be escalated to a nearby group, who might already know the solution
• Remind students to use the debugging process before you approach
• Have students describe the problem that they’re seeing. What is it supposed to do? What does it do? What does that tell you?
• Remind frustrated students that frustration is a step on the path to learning, and that persistence will pay off
• If a student is still stuck after all of this, ask leading questions to get the student to spot an error on their own

Wrap Up (5 - 10 min)

Journaling

Having students write about what they learned, why it’s useful, and how they feel about it can help solidify any knowledge they obtained today and build a review sheet for them to look to in the future.

Journal Prompts:

• What was today’s lesson about?
• Draw one of the Feeling Faces - Emotion Images that shows how you felt about today's lesson in the corner of your journal page.

Extended Learning

In small groups, let students design their own mazes on paper and challenge other students or groups to write programs to solve them. For added fun, make life-size mazes with students as the pig and bird.