Lesson 13: Project - Decision Maker App Part 2

Project | App Lab

Overview

Students translate the plans they documented in Part 1 of the Practice PT to a working program in App Lab through a series of steps.

Purpose

The Practice PT gives students the opportunity to design and program an app from scratch. Welcome to The Decision Maker App! Students demonstrate mastery of variables, conditionals, and functions by combining these elements into a useful program designed to solve the problem of making a decision.

Agenda

Lesson Modifications

Warm Up (2 mins)

Activity (38 mins)

Wrap Up (5 mins)

View on Code Studio

Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • See rubric for guidance in measuring student learning

Preparation

  • Make sure students will have access to their project guides

Links

Heads Up! Please make a copy of any documents you plan to share with students.

For the Teachers

For the Students

Teaching Guide

Lesson Modifications

Attention, teachers! If you are teaching virtually or in a socially-distanced classroom, please read the full lesson plan below, then click here to access the modifications.

Warm Up (2 mins)

Teaching Tip

Short Intro: The Warm Up today is short and light. Students should spend the maximum amount of time working on their projects.

Intro the Project

Remarks

Today we are continuing work on the Decision Maker App. Each level in Code Studio contains a step to think through while constructing your app.

Activity (38 mins)

Build the Decision Maker App

Do This: Students now transition to Code Studio where they will build their app.

Display: Display the steps for today along with the debugging steps on the board while students work.

Teaching Tip

Supporting students in Practice PT Lessons

At this point in the project attention shifts to App Lab where students design and program their app. Continue to circulate the room and check in with students as needed to make sure instructions are clear and students understand expectations.

What should you expect?

  • Planning Guides out on desks or tables so students can reference them while setting up their apps
  • A healthy buzz in the classroom as students collaboratively debug
  • There may be some student confusion on the steps to take in building their app. Direct students back to the instructions, and make sure they haven't skipped any of the levels where the steps are delineated.

Level 2: Design Mode

  • Students create the screens they designed in Step 6 in the Planning Guide.
  • Encourage students to use templates where appropriate to speed the process along.

Level 3: Create the Variables

  • Using the list of variables from Step 4 in the Planning Guide students create their variables.

Level 4: Create the Function

  • This is most likely the trickiest step.
  • Students create an updateScreen() function with a conditional statement
  • Students should reference the flowchart in Step 5 of the Planning Guide to help craft the Boolean expression(s) for the conditional statement.
  • A comment is added to explain what it does (purpose) and how it does that (functionality)

Level 5: Add onEvents

  • For each item that can be interacted with on the screen, students add an onEvent block where they update the appropriate variable and add a call to the updateScreen() function.

Wrap Up (5 mins)

No wrap-up today. All time is spent on the project.

Standards Alignment

View full course alignment

CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards (2017)

AP - Algorithms & Programming
  • 2-AP-10 - Use flowcharts and/or pseudocode to address complex problems as algorithms.
  • 2-AP-11 - Create clearly named variables that represent different data types and perform operations on their values.
  • 3A-AP-16 - Design and iteratively develop computational artifacts for practical intent, personal expression, or to address a societal issue by using events to initiate instructions.
  • 3B-AP-14 - Construct solutions to problems using student-created components, such as procedures, modules and/or objects.