Day 1
01 Intros 02 CSD Overview 03 Break 04 Model Lesson 1 05 Lunch 06 Model Lesson 2 07 Lesson Assignments 08 Break 09 Lesson Planning 10 Unit 1 Wrap Up 11 Fac. Debrief
Day 2
12 Intro to Unit 2 13 Model Lesson 3 14 Break 15 Lesson Planning 16 Lunch 17 TLO 1 18 Break 19 TLO 2 20 Scavenger Hunt 21 Instructional Strategies 22 Fac. Debrief
Day 3
23 Community 24 Getting Buy-In 25 Break 26 TLO 3 27 Debugging 28 Lunch 29 TLO 4 30 Break 31 TLO 5 32 Scavenger Hunt 33 Unit 2 Wrap Up 34 Fac. Debrief
Day 4
35 Equity 36 Recruiting 37 Break 38 Unit 3 Intro 39 TLO 6 40 Lunch 41 TLO 7 42 Break 43 TLO 8 44 Scenarios 45 Unit 3 Wrap Up 46 Fac. Debrief
Day 5
47 Preparing for the Year 48 Assessment 49 Break 50 Planning 51 Lunch 52 Local Flex Time 53 Closing Ceremonies 54 End Early & Friday Facilitator Debrief

Session 6: Model Lesson 2: U1L6 Processing

75 minutes

lesson exploration | role play

Purpose

  • Set the tone for TLO sessions for the week
  • Demonstrate best practices with an unplugged lesson
  • Demonstrate input-store-process-output model and how we begin to have students investigate this
  • Demonstrate a inquiry-based problem solving lesson and the challenges of teaching these types of lessons, including the fact that students don't need to come up with the "right" answer to get the learning in this lesson

Objectives

  • Act as learners in a demo lesson modeled by facilitator
  • See an unplugged lesson modeled
  • Be introduced to the course by experiencing the course

Supplies & Prep

Room Setup:

  • Normal Breakout Room Set Up
  • Decks of cards (at least 1 per 8 learners) with face cards removed
  • Teachers sitting in pairs

Facilitator Supplies and Prep:

Teacher Materials:

Agenda

Kick Off (5 minutes)

Model Lesson (40 minutes)

Debrief (30 minutes)

Facilitation Guide

Kick Off (5 minutes)

Previously On (4 minutes)

Using the slides, go over the lessons in Unit 1 they will have skipped to get here.

  • Unit 1 Lesson 4: Students categorize many devices as computers or not before being introduced to the Input-Storage-Processing-Output model of a computer
  • Unit 1 Lesson 5: Students explore the different kinds of input and output devices computers use to manipulate information

Show What Makes a Computer, a Computer? - Video

Reinforce the Input-Store-Process-Output model so that learners will understand the role of processing during the model lesson.

Role Reminders (1 minute)

  • Remind everyone of their roles during the model lesson

Remarks

Put your hats on and lets get ready to go!

Model Lesson (40 minutes)

(5 minutes) Warm Up

Remarks

Today we are going to keep exploring the Input-Storage-Processing-Output model of a computer. Before we get going though, let's do a quick activity.

Group: Place students in pairs with at most one group of three

Teaching Tip

Keep the Warm Up Short: This lesson can go long and you would like to give your room a good chunk of time to focus on the main activity. Keep it moving quickly here.

Distribute: Give each pair about 10 playing cards. Remove the face cards. At the front of the room you may choose to project a timer.

Discussion Goal

Goal: Try to highlight the following points as you synthesize comments from the room.

  • The input is the unsorted deck. The output is the sorted deck. The processing is the actual sorting process that turns the input into the output.
  • Students may say any number of things here. It’s better to take a “no wrong answers” approach unless students offer ideas that truly contradict things they’ve already seen in the class.

Sort 1: Have students start with a pile face down. Explain that when you say go they'll need to get the cards in a face up line sorted from lowest to highest. The first time there's no need to give them time to prepare. Say 3-2-1 Go and let them sort the cards.

Discuss: Give pairs a minute or two to discuss how they will improve next time.

Sort 2: Repeat the activity and have teams compare how well they did.

(5 minutes) What are the inputs and outputs?

Think-Pair-Share In this activity what was the input, the output, and the processing?

Create a poster at the front of the room with inputs, and outputs for the activity listed.

Remarks

There are many ways your solutions might be different from how a computer would solve this problem. In general, however, the biggest difference is that computers need to be programmed with a plan without knowing the exact cards that they are going to get. In the next activity we're going to look at how a computer might solve this same problem.

(25 Minutes) Card Sorting Algorithms

Teaching Tip

Model the Rules: You will likely need to model the rules of the activity. For unplugged activities like this one misconceptions can easily arise. Leave time early in the activity for questions to avoid students spending time on the wrong problem.

Activity Guide - Sorting Cards

Teaching Tip

Speed is Less Important: In the warm up activity the timing can help with motivation. In this activity the focus is much more on more deliberate problem solving. So long as their solutions work considerations of speed or efficiency aren't important for the goals of this lesson.

Start with Fewer Cards: Encourage the class to start with just three or four cards before trying to test their algorithms on eight or more.

Have everyone take out their Activity Packet to get to the activity guide for this lesson.

Processing Uses Algorithms: Read this section together as a class, calling out the new vocabulary word algorithm. (On slides)

Review Instructions: Have students read the activity instructions, then review as a class.

Review Inputs and Outputs: Create poster similar to the one you came up with for the first sorting which lists the inputs and outputs you will be using for this activity as you try to figure out how to process the information like a computer.

Circulate: Walk around the room and listen to the types of ideas students are discussing. Encourage students to practice using the Tips section on the activity guide. Reinforce the idea that they should have a strategy that works for every arrangement of the cards, not just the ones that they have out currently. Ensure pairs are switching between Sorter and Pointer roles.

Teaching Tip

Encourage Student Practices: Encourage students to use the problem-solving process, to collaborate with one another, to test their work, and to be persistent. Having these frameworks on posters on the wall can help you quickly make these points.

Share: After several minutes have groups share the approaches they are using. The aim here is to give students a chance to hear how others are approaching the problem. Some groups may subsequently choose to update their approach based on ideas from other teams when they run the challenge the next time.

Circulate: Have students return to the challenge, encouraging them to move to more cards. Once teams have an algorithm they think works, have them write or draw a description of it on the activity guide.

(10 minutes) Wrap Up

Discussion Goal

Goal: Use the first prompt to connect the activity to the problem-solving process. Call out that many of the skills they used in this lesson are just general problem solving skills that they've been working on and will see throughout the course.

Reflection: Have learners reflect on the first question in the reflection section at the bottom of the activity guide.

  • What step of the problem-solving process did you think was most important in this activity?

Four Corners: Once everyone has written down their reflection assign each corner of a room a step on the problem solving process and have learners go stand in the corner for the one they chose. Have the people in that corner discuss why they chose that corner.

Discuss: Have one person from the corner share out some reasons people picked that step.

Remarks

Computers help us solve problems by processing inputs to make outputs. As we saw in the second activity today, that can often mean more work up front to develop very specific steps a computer could use to process the information. It can be tricky and require lots of our problem-solving skills to do this. The benefits, however, are once you have the problem solved once you can make a computer solve that problem for you every time after that.

Debrief (30 minutes)

Have everyone take their hats off and exit their role. They can now think normally as teachers.

Lead who did not teach the model lesson runs the debrief.

Teaching Tip

Using the Lesson Plan: Some learners may have found this activity quite challenging and will be feeling intimidated. Use the debrief to reset expectations about what success looks like in this lesson. You may even reference the learning objectives and purpose in the lesson plan itself. Teachers with more CS experience may have lots of ideas about how this lesson could be extended into a deeper analysis of algorithms, but that is not the goal. The focus here should be that the same student practices as in the previous model lesson are being emphasized.

(5 minutes) Debrief: Individual Reflection

  • 2-3 minutes to individual reflect then chat at the table

Suggested Prompt: This lesson claims to cover the following learning objectives:

  • Define processing as the work done (possibly by a computer) to turn an input into an output
  • Define an algorithm as the series of commands a computer uses to process information
  • Develop and iteratively improve an algorithm for processing information based on given constraints

How did the lesson support discovery and understanding of these learning objectives?

Note: During this time the facilitator who modeled the lesson should be preparing to share out using the teaching reflection questions.

(25 minutes) Debrief: Share-Out

  • During the share-out take notes in the shared notes doc

  • Start the share out with the "teacher" (the lead facilitator who modeled the lesson) sharing out about choices made in teaching the lesson.

    • Choices Advice, Takeaways
    • Facilitators share their planning document for the lesson
    • Make sure to highlight resources or parts of the lessons you made "choices" to skip

  • Then pose your follow up question and start the whole group debrief discussion

    • Suggested Prompt: Turn to Unit 1 page of your Curriculum to see the content and attitudinal goals of the unit. How does the activity build towards these goals?