Introduction to Unit 6 (7 minutes)

(2 minutes) 💷 Introduce Unit 6

Use the slides to introduce the unit. Key information to point out includes:

• Unit 6 should be your first unit in the second semester.
• It contains only five lessons and one day for assessment. There is no project for this unit.
• This is an unplugged unit that allows students a break from programming and opportunities to use a different set of creative problem solving skills.
• You will notice that this unit involves some mathematical reasoning. It is not important that students deeply understand the math content, but can describe how math influences algorithmic choices.
• Math is always used “just enough” to understand the lesson - it should not be the focus of the lesson. If teachers tend to focus on the math too much, be sure to note how much math is required to meet the objectives.

(5 minutes) Lesson Overviews

💷 Give participants time to read the lesson overviews in the slides. Participants should look for similarities and differences in Unit 6 to previous units. They should document any similarities or differences in the designated slide. All participants will add to one slide to describe the similarities and differences. As a facilitator, you should monitor this slide and be prepared to pull out the big ideas in the wrap-up.

Wrap-up (3 minutes)

💷 Summarize the similarities and differences that participants described in the slides. If there is time, feel free to ask the group to elaborate on what they wrote in the slide. At the end of this time, you should have pulled out the following two big ideas:

• Unit 6 is similar to previous units in that it features many unplugged activities. The activities are intended to help students get hands-on practice with content that can otherwise feel abstract.

  • Much like earlier units, it can be tempting to go deeper than necessary in this unit but the focus should be on the learning objectives.
  • The learning objectives are aligned to the AP framework so additional depth is not necessary.
    
    

• One of the main differences from this unit to prior units is that this unit may privilege students with stronger math backgrounds. For that reason, it is important to recognize the multiple intelligences in your classroom by considering ahead of time how those intelligences will manifest themselves. By publicly acknowledging the multiple ways students contribute, you can support building an inclusive classroom environment.