🎯 Developing Learning Targets

January 13, 2017

Our work from yesterday…

Essential Questions

• What is code?
• What is programming?
• How are programs organized?
• How are different type of data used in programming?
• How can I solve problems using code?
• Why do we need programming?
• What is the point of coding?
• Is coding another type of language?
• How does coding help you in life?
• How does code relate to the subject you teach?

Understandings

• Indentation matters, there will always be errors, and you’re never finished.
• “Fall down seven times, get up eight.”
• Comments help make your code understandable.
• Making mistakes it the best thing you can do.
• Failing is actually one of the best things because there is always a way to debug what you have programmed.
• “It’s okay to be lazy” being lazy doesn’t mean you’re not putting work into what you do it just means you do something complicated in a simple way.
• There is always a more simple/ lazy way to write code.
• Be specific in everything you do. Be ordered.
• Be creative and learn from your errors.

Assessment Questions

• Why do you want to learn about programing/coding?
• What does coding mean to you?
• How can we be specific when writing code?

Questions for us to figure out

• How can you break down coding in the simplest way so someone can understand it?
• What should the difficulty be for the very first lesson?
• What code would you like to teach first ?
• What are the “basics” of coding?

The next step is to figure out what a student in your class should be able to do once it’s over. At the end of class, they should be able to say “I can _____” and you should be able to assess that, yes, they can.

I developed 🎯 Learning Targets for this class. Do you remember the 👌 SNAP Learning Target Tracker or the 🐍 Python Learning Target Tracker? Those are assessments.

We need to develop 2-3 short-term learning targets for the students.

🎯 I can…
🎯 I can…
🎯 I can…

Review your Learning Targets from this semester. Which ones do you think could apply to the lesson we are planning? What have I missed?

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📝 Assessment

Assessments are evidence. You’re used to seeing them as tests or exit slips, but they’re also reflections, rubrics, conversations, code you submit, drawings…whatever shows a teacher you’ve mastered an idea or a skill.

Any good lesson includes formative assessment that occurs while people are learning and allows you to see where they’re getting confused and need help (or where they are destroying the work and need to pushed harder (👋 pretty much each of you at some point this semester).

Teachers also use summative assessments at the end of a unit, usually comparing students to a baseline or grade standards.

You will only be teaching for one day (at least for now), so you probably won’t be giving a test. BUT – you still need to think about assessment.

Some questions I ask myself:

1⃣ How do I know students are learning while I’m teaching? How do I know where they’re stuck?

2⃣ How many students are meeting my standards? How many are exceeding and need an extension?

3⃣ What can I adjust, right now, based on this information?

4⃣ What’s next?