So, Chris and I decided to join forces and introduce our combined Calculus & Pre-Calculus classes to simple programming. I have almost zero knowledge about programming. So by "join forces", I really mean that he taught the class and I'm over here learning along with the students.
This was sort of a spur-of-the-moment interruption-to-your-regularly-scheduled-math-class-kind-of-activity. We have flexible schedules, so we decided to jump in and try it and I am so glad we did! I am feeling confident about doing this on my own in my other classes now.
I am sure this is all painfully simple to anyone who knows anything about programming, but it was mostly new to me. I wanted to document here for my future self. Maybe someone reading is like me and never thought you could do this sort of thing. You can! If you don't have a stellar student teacher to help you out like I did, just follow these steps.
Day 1 looked like this;
1. Distribute TI-83 calculators. Some kids had them already, we had enough for the rest to borrow.
2. Demonstrate the location of the PRGM button, the NEW tab, name a program, and locate all the commands within the program menu.
3. Demonstrate the ClrHome and Disp commands. Write a program to display the word "HELLO".
4. Demonstrate the Input command. Show students how to store a value, calculate and display a result. Write a program to request someone's age and tell them how old they'll be in 20 years. (I did not like my number).
We also did a pythagorean theorem program together.
5. Send them home with some programs to try:
*Write a program that asks the user for the year they were born, and then displays approximately how many years old they are.
*Write a program that asks the user for 2 x-coordinates and 2 y-coordinates and then finds the distance between the points.
It was a super fun day to be a
I am pumped for my next lesson!
Stay tuned for Day 2.
Amy...I'm SO happy to hear how well this worked! This is very much the same response that I usually get...kids pacing the lunchroom programming. Thank you so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThank YOU for the inspiration! I will definitely do this again.
DeleteAmy, that's fantastic! Jasmine and I had lots of fun creating her programming project, and I look forward to hearing what you and Chris and your students come up with!
ReplyDeleteI really like programming as a tool for teaching algorithmic thinking because it forces students to clarify their thinking and provides an external reference for whether they've done it correctly. If you can't explain what you expect to happen, you can't program it--so it really funnels people into thinking carefully about statements and making clear ones. Programming also provides immediate and direct feedback; if you did it wrong, it doesn't work, and it tells you why.
As one of my teachers said: "if you don't understand the math, you can't write code to do the math, so it makes you learn the math."
Cheers!
Hollis (I go with Jasmine)
www.holliseaster.com / @adkpiper
Hi Amy, I am a big fan of your blog! Have you read about the Hour of Code? You can read about it at csedweek.org. I have signed on to teach my students to write one hour of code, having never programmed anything in my life, and was wondering what I would do . . . until I read this post! Of course, graphing calcs make great sense since my students all have them! Inspired, I used an old textbook with chemistry program tutorials to create a couple of chemistry programs. Today I wrote my first program from scratch! Thanks for writing this inspirational post.
ReplyDeleteAmy
Thanks for reading, Amy! I am so excited to hear that this post was helpful to you. Thanks for letting me know! The thing that I found most surprising about jumping into programming, is how very accessible it is to all students. Talk about a low entry high exit! Good luck with your coding project, I'd love to hear how it goes!
DeleteOne of my current students who loves to program just suggested this great wiki for programming TIs:
Deletehttp://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/starter-kit
It looks really cool.
:) Amy