Day 1
01 Workshop Opener 02 Live Demo: Variables Explore 03 Live Demo: Variables Investigate 04 Wrap-Up

Session 2: Live Demo: U4L1 - Variables Explore

35 minutes

lesson exploration

Purpose

Since every programming unit in the curriculum follows the EIPM model, it is important that participants understand the unique role each lesson type plays in building student understanding of the content. This live demo is intended to teach participants the content in the lesson (variables) but also understand the pedagogy used in Explore lessons.

Objectives

  • Participants understand how the structure of Explore lessons support student understanding of concepts and vocabulary.
  • Participants understand the role shared mental models play in the classroom.

Supplies & Prep

Workshop Modality:

  • Whole group
  • Breakout rooms

Facilitator Supplies:

Teacher Materials:

  • ~4 ziploc baggies
  • Two different colored stickies (alternative: scraps of paper)
  • Whiteboard marker (alternative: permanent marker)
  • Pens
  • White background (white paper or folder)

Agenda

Context and Live Demo (22 minutes)

Discussion (13 minutes)

Facilitation Guide

Context and Live Demo (22 minutes)

Facilitator Tip

We skim over the context here to save time and also since participants should have a solid understanding of the context if they did the asynchronous work. These comments help remind participants of the asynchronous work and also provide a brief context for those who did not participate in that work.

(1 min) 💷 Context

Provide brief context for this lesson.

Remarks

  • In your asynchronous work you read a high level overview of Units 3 and 4. Next we are going to do a “live demo” of U4L1 which is the first lesson in Unit 4. You will not see the lesson in full, but rather will engage in portions of the lesson.
  • The asynchronous work you completed before this workshop provided you with context for this lesson, but at a high level, prior to this lesson students learned how to use design mode and basic event handlers in Unit 3. Unit 4 is where they learn how to use more advanced programming concepts like variables, conditionals, and functions.
  • Unit 4 is also where we start using EIPM which you also read about in your asynchronous work. Our purpose behind this live demo is to help you understand the content in the lesson but also how Explore lessons support student understanding of the concept.

Facilitator Tip

Depending on your group size, you may want to keep the full group together during this time. It can be hard to monitor a large group for this session, so if your group is greater than 10 participants, we recommend breaking it up between you and your co-facilitator so each of you lead a smaller group in a breakout room.

Producer support: Prepare to divide the room into two equal-sized groups.

(1 min) 💷 Describe Roles

Remarks

  • During this exercise you will want to keep the perspective of the learner in mind, just like you keep learners in mind when you prepare for any lesson they teach. After the lesson, we will have an opportunity to talk about how you might implement this lesson in your classroom, but during the live demo, embrace the learner experience!
  • We are going to divide up into two different breakout rooms for this live-demo. This will allow us to better see what everyone is doing. Also, if you’re in a reasonably quiet space, consider taking yourself off mute so you can freely participate in the smaller group. We found it challenging to hold the manipulatives up and toggle between turning on and off the microphone.

Producer support:

  • Put participants in two different breakout rooms - each breakout room should have one facilitator in it.
  • This activity should take roughly 20 minutes. Wait for a message from both facilitators before bringing everyone back to the full group session.

    • Facilitator Tip

    Facilitators will need to to contact their producers after they are done with your live demo. Make sure you have a system to communicate this to them (either by using a text, Slack, or other messaging device to contact them).

    (20 mins) Run the Live Demo

    Remind participants again of some basics when you get to your breakout room:

    • If you are in a quiet spot, take yourself off mute.
    • This is not a model lesson, but we are going to be thinking about learners while doing this task.
    • You will only see part of this lesson, not the full thing.

    Start Live Demo

    Turn off screen share.

    Check for materials

    Remarks

    Let’s start! Can everyone hold up their materials to the camera?

    Show me your:

    • Baggies (Pause)
    • Dark marker / whiteboard marker (Pause)
    • Stickies or scraps of paper (Pause)
    • What you will be using as a background - a light sheet of paper will do (Pause)

    Introduce Values

    Remarks

    • On each sticky we are going to have a value. For me, I am going to take my yellow sticky and I am going to write my favorite number on that sticky.
      • Do this and hold it up on the screen.

    • Take a yellow sticky, or any other color if you don’t have yellow, and write your favorite number on it. When you are done, hold it up to the screen.
      • Pause, call out people who you see “I see Franklin’s favorite number is 44, I see Jess’s favorite number is 11” etc.

    • We can also have text stored in a value. This text is called a “string” in programming. I am going to take a different-colored sticky and write my favorite sounding word on the sticky. When we write a string in programming we use quotes. So I wrote the word “justice” on a blue sticky.
      • Do this and hold it up on the screen.

    • Take a different colored sticky and write your favorite word to say. Then hold that value up to the screen.
      • Pause, call out people who you see with words on their stickies.

    Introduce Variables

    Remarks

    • We're going to call the plastic baggies on your table "variables". Variables can hold at most one value, or sticky note. They have names that use no quotes, include no spaces, and must start with a letter.

    • I am going to make a variable called “boo” by writing “boo” on a baggie. I am going to use a white background so you can see what this looks like.
      • Do this and hold it up on the screen.

    • Then I am going to put my value that I wrote down on my yellow sticky in the “boo” variable. So now, my variable “boo” holds the value X (whatever you wrote down on the sticky).
      • Do this and hold it up on the screen.

    • Create your own variable by taking a baggie and giving the baggie a name. This can be any name, it just has to start with a letter, have no spaces and you will not use quotes for this variable name.
      • Pause.
      • Ask people to describe what they are showing you. Rephrase what they say using words like “variable” and “value” (ex. “I have a baggie with the number 8” you can say “You have a variable called fun with the value 8 in it.”)

    • Variables can only hold one value at a time.

    • Let’s make a new variable to store our string in. Create a new variable - you can name it whatever you like. Store the value of your string in the baggie. Hold it up to the screen when done.
      • Pause.
      • Ask people to describe what they are showing you.

    Introduce Program Code

    Remarks

    Let’s look at what this looks like in program code.

    💷 Begin sharing your slides.

    Slides                     Speaker Notes
    Say: Here's what a program looks like. The var command tells the computer to create a variable. The variable’s name is pow. So this line of code would have us get a baggie and write pow on the outside. Nothing is inside the baggie yet.
    Say: The left arrow is called the "assignment operator". That's just a fancy word for "put this value in the baggy". If we wanted to read line 01 we would say "pow gets 3". We know that variables can only hold one sticky note or value. So if we try to assign a variable that already has a value in it, we just throw the old one away.

    Click for animation: Click through to run the program.

    Say: In a computer you don't actually put the old number in a trash can, it's totally deleted! The numbers are stored as electrical charges somewhere in your computer's memory. When you assign a new number to a variable it actually erases the old number, and stores the new number in its place.
    Say I am going to share another set of code. Act it out with your stickies.

    Note: Pause for participants to work. When done, have them hold up their pizza variable. Check that it is accurate. Then check the tacos variable. No baggies should have more than one sticky note in them. Clarify misconceptions.

    Click for animation: Click through to see the answers.
    Say: Now let's combine what we've learned. You can use assignment with expressions. In order for this to work you need to evaluate first, then assign. This makes sense because we know we can only put one sticky note in the variable baggy.
    Do This: Run through this program together as a class.

    Note: Reinforce: Evaluate, then assign

    As shown on line 04, there's no special "connection" made between variables. All we're doing is moving information around.

    Variables only hold one value, the old one is "thrown away" (again, what's happening is that assignment replaces the electric charges somewhere inside the computer so the old value is actually "erased" or "deleted")

    Click for animation: Click through to run the program.

    End of the live demo. Once you have gotten to this point, message your producer letting them know you are done.

    💷 Note: If you finish before your co-facilitator, talk about what they didn’t see and what the key takeaways are from this lesson - shown in the slides. You can also give them time to process what they saw, but they will get time to talk after everyone gets back to the big room. Once both groups are done, the producer will bring you back to the big room.

    Discussion (13 minutes)

    (6 mins) 💷 Small Group Discussion

    Producer support: Prepare to put participants in groups of 4 for 5 minutes with a 2 minute warning.

    Introduce task

    Remarks

    Welcome back! You did not see the full lesson, but we wanted you to get a feel for what this looks like in practice. We are going to go into smaller groups to process what we just saw.

    💷 Small Group Discussion Task

    • Set a note taker and share out person roles
    • Talk with your group about the discussion questions:
      • This activity helps create a shared mental model for students of what a variable is.
        • As a teacher, how is having a “shared” mental model helpful in a classroom?
        • How can you use a shared mental model to build an inclusive classroom culture?

    Remarks

    We will meet back here in five minutes at XX:XX. Remember to take notes in the designated slide for your group.

    Producer support: Place participants in groups of 4 for 5 minutes with a 2 minute warning

    (6 mins) 💷 Full Group Share Out

    • Turn off screen sharing so that everyone can see everyone’s faces during the discussion.
    • Have each person assigned to have the “share out” role share for the group.
    • Connect questions from the question parking lot whenever possible.

    Facilitator Tip

    There is no built-in time for a break during this synchronous workshop, but you may find that a short break might be needed here. Consider adding a 1 minute stretch before moving to the next section and reducing the time answering questions in the Q&A synchronously during the wrap-up and instead type out answers to those questions instead.

    (1 minute) Closure

    Remarks

    The goal here was for you to get the “feel” of developing a shared mental model with learners during an Explore lesson. Next we are going to look at the Investigate lesson that follows this Explore lesson to see how the two are connected.