Session 4: Model Lesson 1 - U1L3: Exploring Problem Solving
75 minutes
lesson exploration
Purpose
Essential Practice: The teacher makes choices when implementing a lesson for their context while maintaining the integrity of the lesson structure and design Lesson Decisions:
- Facilitate a lesson that includes a warm up, activity, and wrap up.
- Use slides to guide students through the lesson - not a tool for lecture and front loading
- Reinforce the steps of the problem solving process in individual conversations with groups and in whole group discussions.
Debrief Topic: Problem Solving Process and Lesson Structure
Objectives
- Participants understand the structure of a CS Discoveries lesson - warm up, activity, wrap up
- Participants understand the role of the Problem Solving Process in the CS Discoveries curriculum
- Participants have a shared definition for identity
Supplies & Prep
Room Setup:
- Participants are seated in pods
- Problem solving process up in the room on a poster
- Put learners in groups of 2 to 4 - probably just at their table.
Facilitator Supplies and Prep:
- Decide which facilitator teaches the lesson
- Decide which facilitator debriefs the lesson
- Day 1 Slides
- Lesson Plan
Teacher Materials:
Agenda
Intro (5 minutes)
Lesson (40 minutes)
Debrief (20 minutes)
Identity Reflection (10 minutes)
Facilitation Guide
Intro (5 minutes)
(2 minutes) TLO Introduction
Facilitator Tip
Consider having a poster you put up and take down whenever you enter and exit roles to signal the switch in a visible way. You can also then point to it if someone drops their role.
Throughout the week we are going to engage in a set of role playing activities designed to achieve a few things at once:
- Give people a shared experience with the curriculum, from which they can talk about student needs
- Provide meaningful experience with the course materials (what’s it like to read through and plan a lesson?)
- Put the CS content required for CS Discoveries into context, and give participants space to learn some of that content
Facilitator explains everyone’s roles during the model lesson:
- One facilitator will act as the teacher. They will not drop character. They will act like they are teaching this to a class of students.
- All of you (the teachers) will act as learners in the lesson. Try to embrace your learner role and if you have a question or idea of something that would make this lesson challenging with your students feel free to try to act as that kind of learner (within reason - i.e. don't go climbing under the tables). You can also jot down your thoughts and we will have time to discuss it after the lesson.
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The other facilitator will act as the observer. They will sit at the back of the room and observe the lesson. The observer is not there to evaluate your teaching. They will not be sharing feedback on your lesson in any way. They will keep time for the teacher and warn them as they get close to 40 minutes. Their main focus while observing is to look for things the group can discuss at the end of the lesson to think about how this lesson will impact students in your future classes. After the lesson, they will run the debrief.
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NOTE: When we do TLOs during the workshop, we are trying to spend time engaging with the material and trying out different ways to teach it. We are not really trying to practice classroom management skills. Therefore when you act as a "learner", it is good to try out some of the different ways students will learn the material but please don't start yelling out, climbing under tables, etc.
(3 minutes) Context Setting
Remarks
Earlier today we shared our CS journeys. These journeys impact who we are as CS teachers and how we interact with students in our classrooms. Our experiences as students are a part of that journey.
(2 minutes) Prompt: Think about your own experience as a middle or early high school student. Make a list of characteristics that describe you when you were a middle or early high school student.
Remarks
As we engage in this model lesson together, try to embody the characteristics of yourself as a student. Put your hats on and let's get ready to go!
Lesson (40 minutes)
Warm Up (5 min)
Journal Prompt: Think of the silliest problem the problem solving process could help with. Be prepared to say how each step of the process could apply.
Discussion Goal
This discussion serves as a review of the problem solving process and highlights how many different types of problems there could be. Encourage students to be creative and have some fun with the different "problems" they might solve.
Allow participants to share out individually.
Remarks
With such a wide variety of problems and strategies, it's important to be able to think about how best to use the problem solving process. Today, we're going to look at some different types of problems, talk about what makes them different, and reflect on how the problem solving process helped us solve them.
Question of the Day: How can we apply the problem solving process to many different kinds of problems?
Teaching Tip
This is a long lesson that will likely span two class periods. In this model lesson you will only do half of the activity from the full lesson. You should, however, still open with a warm up and close with a wrap up. This will be important for upcoming discussions about lesson structure.
Activity (30 min)
Group: For all three activities, participants should be working together in groups, even if they record their results individually. Groups of 2-4 will likely work best. Distribute: Hand out the activity guide, one copy for each student. For now, they can be face down so that the word search isn't visible. Solving Problems
Teaching Tip
Integrating the Problem Solving
Process: This word search can actually take several minutes, especially if students are approaching without some kind of strategy. Remind them that one step is to Prepare before they just jump in and start hunting.
Word Search Once participants are in pairs, ask them to flip over their activity guides and begin the first challenge. They'll be finding the 8 words in a 20 by 20 grid of letters.
Circulate: Walk around the room observing how participants are addressing the problem. Make sure that groups are not sharing locations of words. Encourage them to think about how making a plan might help them address this task. Once all groups have finished, bring the class back together. Have participants flip to the last page of the activity guide where there is a table to record their experiences with the problem. They will record what parts of solving this problem fall within each step of the problem solving process.
Discuss: Briefly discuss with participants what parts of the activity they felt fell into each step of the problem solving process. Some possible points to make after students share are below.
- Define: This problem was already very well defined. Not all problems will be, though.
- Prepare: Developing a plan with a team (such as divvying up the words, splitting the grid into separate sections that each member searches in, or just being methodical about looking for words) makes this problem much easier to solve than random searching.
- Try: Patience and persistence is important to see your plan through
- Reflect: If your early plans are not working you can regroup and choose a new plan
Teaching Tip
Integrating the Problem Solving Process: This problem is particularly challenging if you don't Define the problem well. If you take it at face value, your job is to randomly guess and check where to put individual people until you find a solution. It is much easier if you define the problem as place groups of friends instead. Make groups of 2 or 3 you know need to be together and then figure out which groups can't be at the same table. This isn't the only approach to the problem, and you shouldn't rush to introduce it as such. Rather, encourage students to discuss with one another what they know needs to be true at the end and whether different approaches might help.
Draw Pictures: Students will likely do better if they draw pictures. You may wish for students to use a journal or scratch paper as a place to brainstorm ideas.
Extending the Problem: If one group finishes far before others, you could give them a blank sheet of paper and ask them to solve the problem again but with a new condition of your choosing (e.g. pick two people sitting at the same table in their solution and ask whether they can solve the problem now that those two people are also in a fight.)
Birthday Guests Move the class on to the birthday guests problem. Groups may still work together on their solutions but shouldn't share with other groups.
Circulate: As before, circulate around the room noting the types of strategies that groups are using. Remind them to use the steps of the problem solving process to help them if they're getting stuck. Once groups have finished solving the problem ask them to move to the last page of the activity guide to record how they used the problem solving process to solve this problem.
Discuss: Briefly discuss with participants what parts of the activity they felt fell into each step of the problem solving process. Some possible points to make after students share are below.
- Define: The problem seems to be a problem of seating individuals. If you instead think of it as a problem of seating groups of people who would like to be together there are many fewer possible solutions to consider.
- Prepare: Ask participants to share what types of strategies they considered before just starting to assign people to seats.
- Try: As before, patience and persistence is important to see your plan through
- Reflect: If early strategies are not working groups may have regrouped and tried a more structured approach
Wrap Up (5 min)
Question of the Day: How can we apply the problem solving process to many different kinds of problems?
Journal Prompt: The problem solving process is particularly helpful when we encounter poorly-defined problems. We saw today that without a well-defined problem the rest of the problem solving process is difficult to follow. What are some questions or strategies we can use to help us better understand and define problems before we try to solve them?
Discussion Goal
There are many different strategies to help define problems, including the questions on the previous lesson's activity guide. Some potentially useful questions include:
- Who in particular does the problem affect? What specifically do they need? In what kind of situations?
- Why does the problem exists? Keep asking to get to the heart of the problem.
- How could I be able to tell if the problem had been solved? What could I observe or measure?
Discuss: Have groups share quickly before taking suggestions from the class as a whole.
Remarks
Excellent work everyone. We now understand a great deal about the problem solving process. This is going to be an incredibly useful tool that we'll use repeatedly throughout the year as we dig deeper into understanding the world of computer science.
Debrief (20 minutes)
| Suggested Debrief Plan | ||
|---|---|---|
| Be Sure to Model | Essential Practices |
The teacher makes choices when implementing a lesson for their context while maintaining the integrity of the lesson structure and design |
| Lesson Decisions |
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| If the essential practices, listed above, are present in the lesson we recommend the following for your debrief: | ||
| Debrief Direction | Topic | Problem Solving Process and Lesson Structure |
| Goal |
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| To reach this goal, consider using the following reflection and discussion prompts: | ||
| Debrief Suggestions | Reflection Prompt |
As a learner, how did you use the Problem Solving Process while working on the word search. Was this the same or different from how you used the process during the birthday guests activity? |
| Shares “Choices, Advice, and Takeaways” | ||
| Discussion Prompts |
Have participants navigate to the U1L3 lesson plan. Read through the lesson plan.
Discussion Goal: This is the first opportunity for participants to explore a lesson plan. There will be more opportunities to dig in later in the day and week. The goal here is for participants to see what is provided in the lesson plan and understand that there is additional planning and prep that goes into facilitating the plan. Each teacher will need to make choices to meet the needs of their context. For example, in this lesson there was a limited amount of time. Modifications were made to the wrap up to accommodate splitting the lesson into two class periods. Classroom management strategies and classroom routines are also not included in the lesson plans and are things a teacher will need to think through. Facilitator Note: As you discuss this prompt, look for places to draw out the decisions for this lesson, listed above. |
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Identity Reflection (10 minutes)
(2 minutes) Context Setting
Remarks
Let’s come back to the reflection we had before engaging in this lesson. The experiences we had when we were students help to shape us as CS teachers. These experiences were likely impacted by aspects of our identity.
Facilitator Tip
Consider adding the definition of identity to a poster that can hang on the wall for the remainder of the workshop. Whenever possible, model using this term while specifically naming identity markers and challenging participants to do the same.
The facilitator shares the definition of “identity” with the group.
Identity: how we each see who we are in the world.
Identity is made up of a variety of visible and hidden markers, like race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, education, physical abilities, etc., and it can be shaped by our experiences and histories.
Facilitator Instructions:
- Introduce the social identity grid on page 3 of the activity guide
- Give participants a few minutes to look over the grid
- Let participants know that this grid is a tool that we will use throughout the week as we reflect on how our identities and the identities of our students impact both the teaching and learning that occurs in our classrooms
(2 minutes) Facilitator Modeling
Before asking participants to reflect on how their identity markers impacted their student experience, the facilitator will model this reflection using a personal example. The facilitator should be as specific as possible using specific social-identity markers and concrete examples.
Prompt: How was your experience as a middle or early high school student impacted by your identity? Try to use identity markers from the social identity grid when possible while reflecting on your experience as a student.
(6 minutes) Reflection
(2 minutes) Individual Reflection
Facilitator Tip
This time is intended to be a personal reflection to help participants start to make the connection between identity markers and the student experience. There will be time later for group sharing on this topic.
Prompt: How was your experience as a middle or early high school student impacted by your identity? Try to use identity markers from the social identity grid when possible while reflecting on your experience as a middle school student.
(3 minutes) Group Share Out
The facilitator invites a few participants to share out responses to the following prompt.
Discussion Goal
This is a quick share out intended to connect the lesson debrief to the identity reflection. In the debrief, participants were introduced to the idea that even though the lesson plans are provided, teachers still need to make choices about how they will implement the lessons with their students. This prompt takes the conversation a step further by highlighting that the choices we make as teachers are impacted by our own experiences and identities. This is an idea that will be further developed throughout the week.
Prompt: How might your identity and experience as a student impact the choices you make when planning for a lesson?
Remarks
As we continue to engage in lessons today and throughout the week, I challenge you to continue to reflect on ways specific identity markers have shaped who you are as a CS teacher and by extension the choices you make when planning lessons for your students.