- [Nancy] Ducing our panelists.
First of all I have Sara Carpenter.
- [Sara] Hi, my name is Sarah Carpenter.
I'm a technology integration coach
for K-5 elementary schools.
I've got three different schools,
and I serve about 150 teachers
and about a thousand students.
My passions are assistive technology
and computing and robotics.
- [Nancy] And next we have Miss Lisa Rode.
- [Lisa] Hi, I'm Lisa Rode.
I'm a sixth grade classroom teacher
in Springfield, Virginia.
I'm also a CS for All
Teachers Community Ambassador
along with Nancy.
At our school, I also am
a curriculum developer
for Dexter Industry.
My passions include making
and building things,
robotics, coding, and I especially love
finding ways to incorporate
computer science concepts
within core curriculum.
- [Nancy] And I am your
host, Nancy McGowan.
I'm an instructional math coach,
a CS for All Teachers ambassador,
and a National Board certified teacher.
So at this time we're going
to kick off our webinar
with a brief video clip.
And if you are listening
through your phone,
your audio should be good.
We are keeping our fingers crossed
on audio through the computers.
So here goes.
(dramatic music)
- Hello!
There are two people
stuck on an escalator,
and we need help now!
Would somebody please do something?
- Hey, don't worry about it.
I'll fix it in a second.
- (laughs) He said he can fix it.
(man and woman laugh)
All right.
All right, that's more like it.
He says he can fix it.
(escalator crashes)
- [Nancy] So in this video,
two people are on an escalator.
It stops and they are stuck.
Their limited experience
doesn't prepare them
to do anything else.
Then a maintenance worker's preparing
to ride to their rescue,
but then he also gets stuck.
So the takeaway here is, while most of us
have seen this video and
you laugh, I love it,
because the solution
for us seems so evident.
Yet the individuals are helplessly stuck.
Now we can obviously
parallel this to our kids
because sometimes they also get stuck
and they don't have the
tools or the experience
to find a resolution.
This brings us to tonight's webinar,
which is Computational Thinking.
The phrase CT for educators,
it seems like the latest
buzzword in education.
And Sara has something that
she received in the mail
just today on computational thinking.
It makes us feel silly,
though, as educators
to say, "I have no idea what CT means,"
and then also, "I don't know
"how it'd even fit into what I teach."
Or you may say, "Oh, I
think it's only related
"to digital devices."
Well, everyone's situation
is different for the devices.
But sometimes we have to
implement work on a device
that seems like just one more item
to our already full plates.
So let's try to wrap our heads around
how we might define
computational thinking.
Computational thinking
involves solving problems.
We're organizing and analyzing data,
we're representing through models,
we're making a series of
ordered steps, an algorithm.
We're trying to figure out solutions
but we wanna be efficient and effective.
And we're also generalizing.
I don't know about you,
but I when I read this,
I think of the way that
this meshes with math.
And then Sara is thinking
how, oh, computer science.
And then Lisa is zeroing in
on English language arts.
So whenever you incorporate new practices
into your classroom,
there's a certain level of expectations.
The benefits of computational thinking
simply reiterate and
support instructional goals
we have for our students.
At this time, if you will
look at the top of your screen
and locate a student icon
at the very top up there,
we're going to get some audience feedback.
So here we go.
Your question is,
what methods of decomposing
numbers do you use?
Would it be, and you can
check as many as you wish,
break apart into two addends,
break apart into more than two,
break apart by place value, or an other.
If you'll go ahead and
select as many or as few.
And we're seeing breaking
apart into two addends,
we're seeing place value.
Okay, now we have break
apart in more than two.
Very nice.
Okay, so everybody I'm noticing
does break apart into two addends.
A fourth of the audience is breaking apart
into more than two.
And then we have about
2/3 of the aud, well,
6/10 of the audience breaking
apart into place value.
Very nice, okay.
We're gonna move on to the next one.
One more poll here.
And when you look at this,
what tools you use in your classroom,
because I feel like as educators,
we always learn from each other,
and I'm always very interested to see
what other people use as far as math
in helping children understand
computational thinking
or just math in general.
Okay, I'm seeing a lot
of five and 10s frames,
some unifix cubes, digit cards, dominoes.
Nice.
'Kay, we'll wait just a few seconds more
to make sure everybody's
had a chance to respond.
Instead of bland (laughs),
we're gonna make that
blank hundreds grids. (laughs)
I love that.
(laughs)
Okay, so it looks like
the most are unifix cubes,
five and 10s frames,
digit cards and dominoes.
Okay, wonderful, thank you.
Now a final note before I leave
the math portion of
decomposition is to make sure,
I guess I need to, hold on.
Sara, my handy-dandy assistant
is helping me out here.
(laughs)
Is to read the article
the 13 Rules that Expire.
This was published in 2014
in the Teaching Children
Mathematics Journal
by the National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics.
The rules are well intentioned,
but they prohibit the long-term success
of children as mathematicians.
And it's a real quick read,
but well worth your time.
At this point I'm gonna
turn it over to Lisa.
- [Lisa] I love how you were talking
about breaking down
numbers in different ways
and how to decompose them,
'cause numbers sense and
fluency are so important.
And as elementary classroom teacher,
we have that advantage of being able
to integrate concepts more.
I know that in my classroom,
we start almost every math class
with number of the day.
And students are asked to
represent a given number
or a solution to a problem multiple ways.
And then when students are able
to decompose that number
in different parts,
they're showing a deeper understanding.
And even today, one of my
students represented 135%
by first breaking it
down with base 10 blocks,
they wrote each part out using decimals,
then brought it all back
together as one and 3,500.
So it's just kind of cool to see that,
as you just mentioned.
That being said, we really need
a strategy of decomposition
across curriculums.
In language arts, we tend to
work on longer-range projects.
One way we are able to
utilize decomposition
is to just break down a large task
that can be really
intimidating to students
or a longer timeframe
to smaller and more manageable chunks
to make sure we're getting
everything accomplished
and we're getting it done
in the most efficient way.
We can also decompose
stories into smaller chunks,
whether it's just looking at
the beginning, middle and end,
or taking a deeper dive
into narrative structure
to include exposition,
rising action, climax,
falling action, resolution,
or going even deeper just
picking apart a story
looking at character and character change,
the setting, the conflict.
Breaking down informational text
can also be overwhelming to students,
especially texts that are
more dense or vocabulary-rich.
So you can discuss
strategies for decomposing
these types of text into
more manageable chunks
to gain a deeper understanding.
This can be like clueing
into text features
such as headings and subheadings,
and how do they help you,
looking at visual supports
such as photographs and diagrams,
and then how they fit
into the bigger picture,
and how everything works together
so that you can help
monitor your comprehension
and support your reading.
Another way to utilize
decomposition in language arts
is through word study.
Whether your students are
working on beginning blends
or looking at endings,
roots, affixes, suffixes,
by decomposing words into smaller chunks,
you're supporting students
learning spelling patterns
as well as the meaning and
usage of different words.
And then you start to build connections
and families between words.
So really there's lots of different ways
to decompose within language arts.
- [Sara] Let's focus
in on computer science.
Decomposition in computer
science can be started
at an early age with a program
like Scratch or ScratchJr.
A teacher may ask students,
"How can we make this kitten in ScratchJr
"dance across the stage"
and then guide students
in creating a algorithm
with smaller steps to accomplish the task.
But it doesn't always have to be
with a screen or block coding.
It can start with unplugged activities,
such as how can we tell a partner
how to draw an image we
see and that they don't?
How can I give instructions to a partner
to walk across the room in a certain path?
Decomposition also can be used
in many different circumstances,
such as drawing out
the steps that it takes
for a seed to become a plant in science,
or through the use of graphic organizers
in all subjects,
which can visually show young students
how to break apart large
amounts of information
into manageable pieces.
- [Lisa] We just provided
a whole lot of information.
Just take a moment and
in the audience chat,
think about a takeaway.
What's something that you want
to dig into a little bit more?
What's something you might want to use
and take back to your school?
Just take a moment and
put that in the chat.
So measuring growth in
computational thinking.
We're gonna keep going.
We'll keep talking about
takeaways throughout.
- [Nancy] Thank you, Lisa.
Having the opportunity
to decompose a problem
into smaller pieces also
allows students time
to identify patterns.
Our next segment of CT
is pattern recognition.
In this step, students
analyze and look for
a repeating sequence.
So 10 years ago, I took a course
through the Mathematics
Education Collaborative.
And this is with Ruth
Parker and Patty Loughran.
It was called Patterns,
the Foundations for Algebraic Thinking.
The math tool that we utilized repeatedly
I have drawn on this slide.
It was simply called a What I See table.
The purpose was to notice and
physically name or sketch out
what you were seeing as you
thought about your math problem.
So the teachers were acting as students
and we used the What I See table
to quickly identify patterns.
And this was also a lesson in
meta cognition for me as well,
because as we identified
patterns that we saw,
we wrote down how we came
to find these patterns.
Were we using skip
counting, multiplication?
Did we have to break numbers apart?
And then we were simply
writing what we saw
just as the table indicated, what I see.
Next we explained why
what we saw was important.
And we'd begin to think
in terms of next step
as we were moving towards
a different solution.
This simple tool was an eye opener
and totally changed how I
approached problem solving.
It also made me a very firm
believer in visual models
when working through a problem.
- [Lisa] In language arts,
when I approach pattern recognition,
I think about trends
and kind of frame patterns
a little bit differently.
Particularly in the upper elementary,
thinking about patterns in multiple ways.
This can take the form
of looking at patterns
that you can see over a genre,
different types of texts
on a particular topic,
or different text from a certain author.
So what commonalities do you
see across the different texts?
What makes them similar,
what makes them different?
And another way to think about patterns
is the text structure.
Text structure is such a powerful tool
to aid in comprehension.
When students are able
to identify the structure
or structures that an
author uses in a text,
they're then able to more
easily organize that information
in their head as they read.
And so if the text utilizes
a cause-effect structure,
then students can have that
pattern ready in their heads
or even in a graphic organizer
to note key points, such as what happened
and then what was the
result, or vice versa.
Pattern recognition also lends itself
really well to word study.
So going back to what we
talked about previously,
seeing that trends and patterns
when you're spelling things
and how words are used.
Gonna turn it over to computer science.
- [Sara] And computer science,
there's a lot of places where
patterns can be observed,
for example between
different pieces of software
to interpret meaning,
such as the triangle
in usually K-2 software
usually represents play,
or a green circle often means go.
Also the patterns of color in Scratch
typically represent different functions.
And the same colors can
be seen in younger tools,
such as ScratchJr.
In block coding, where
students can see an action
by a character, it's repeated many times.
They are able to recognize this repetition
and construct any for
a loop block in coding.
Patterns also can be observed
in weather in science.
So computer science
students can create meaning
of their world that they
live in with the patterns
and then can apply those
same principles in coding.
- [Nancy] And funny thing,
so when we were preparing
for this webinar,
we were talking about just
all the different resources we were using.
And then today, I had
a colleague to email me
a blurb regarding graphic novels.
So I told Lisa, I said,
"Lisa, you're not gonna believe this,
"but they have graphic novels
that have a math storyline."
And it's not really for K-1 and -2,
but it started with
multiplication and division
and talking about
exponents and powers of 10.
And the premise of the
novels was hilarious.
I just, I really wanna get
my hands on one of those
to read it.
But it made me think of Lisa
and doing English language arts
and just everything that
we're talking about tonight
and how it all tied together.
- [Lisa] That's awesome.
I can't wait to actually
find out the title for that.
- [Sara] I know, me too!
- [Lisa] (mumbles) those titles.
Yeah.
So we can just take a moment again
and see what takeaways
you're having from this,
the questions you might have,
things that you wanna dig into deeper,
and just put that in the audience chat.
- [Nancy] And as everybody's talking,
thank you so much for
your questions so far
because that helps us know a direction
for tonight's conversation.
In case you have something
that we have not addressed so far,
we would love to know any questions
that you have about
computational thinking.
- [Lisa] We'll just go ahead
and pause there for now.
You know, take some time if you,
if you have something
that you have a question about throughout
or another takeaway, feel
free to add it throughout.
Tim, I see you said,
what projects do you see
as a good capstone project to assess
that students are learning
computational thinking
standards or skills?
- [Nancy] That was a very good question.
Let me think--
- [Lisa] There are
particular grade levels?
Yeah, let me think on that, too.
Sorry.
Nancy?
- [Nancy] You know, I love that.
I would be very interested to know
if Tim does have a specific
grade level in mind,
and also how many different areas
do you want to incorporate?
Are you thinking about making it
a cross-curricular capstone project?
- [Lisa] Yeah, the code.org
is a fantastic resource,
has a whole bunch of different things,
whether you wanna do
unplugged or plugged lessons.
And they do incorporate math and reading.
It really depends on,
like, the grade levels.
- [Nancy] True.
Tim, you are unmuted right now.
So if you want to elaborate
a little bit for everybody,
we would love to hear.
- [Tim] Okay, thank you.
Yeah, one of the things we're doing,
we're piloting a computer
science integration plan
in our elementary school this year.
And of course one of the
big components I feel is,
you have to assess as you go along
to understand if you're doing a good job,
understand if the kids are
picking up the concepts,
and then kinda tweak
your program as you go.
And I think vocabulary
assessments are good for that,
to see if they're starting
to understand the vocabulary,
but also to do a project that shows
they're really understanding
the concepts, too,
of computational thinking, slash,
computer science, slash, coding.
And just wondering if people had ideas
along those lines
as to what would be a
good way to demonstrate
that the kids are acquiring the skills.
You know, each year obviously
sequentially you wanna make sure
that they're, just like
any other content area,
that they're growing.
- [Sara] I like that you
mentioned their vocabulary.
We're kind of in a similar
spot in our district,
where our state just developed
computer science standards,
starting in kindergarten.
And we're kind of in the same place,
like how do we encourage that vocabulary
starting in kindergarten and growing up?
So we're kind of in the
same place that y'all are.
I really like the CS First,
they're actually the coding club sets.
But to me those are great
for creating a project
for the kids to be able to demonstrate
what they've learned
during the whole course.
- [Tim] Yeah, we use CS First.
I just started that this year.
Like that, also.
We're gonna do Cahoot quizzes.
I'm trying to figure out sequentially
how we're gonna build from K
to five with the vocabulary,
just like you would in language arts,
just like you would in math,
kind of that sequential order
and scaffolding the concepts.
So I guess everybody's
kind of in that same boat.
- [Sara] Yeah, but I do see--
- [Lisa] It is something different.
- [Sara] No, no, no, go ahead.
- [Lisa] No, I just think,
I think that there are,
you know, there's so
many different schools
that are feeling a little bit overwhelmed
with integrating in holistically
because it's kinda like
one additional thing.
But finding ways to kind of,
like, build that vocabulary,
I know one way that we've been
doing it in my classroom is,
we've kind of integrated
the robotics and programming
and looked at ways that, (stutters)
we're building Mars Rovers
because we're learning about astronomy.
We're going to other planets.
And then we're writing about that.
And it's really through the journaling
and how are you using decomposition?
How have you used algorithmic design?
How have you found patterns
to solve your problems?
And it's all through
that journaling process
that they're showing their thinking
and how they're building upon it.
And so it isn't dependent
on their previous skills necessarily.
I'm looking for growth from
the beginning of the year
student by student.
And you can do that with
any sort of projects
that fit your curriculum.
- [Nancy] Thank you.
And Tim, one thing that we also used
a couple of years back
with some elementary kids
was App Maker.
And I think this is, but I'm not for sure,
but it was through code.org.
The kids were very
interested in making an app
that would also make an
impact on the community.
And so we had a special
guest speaker to come in
to kind of help us go
through some design thinking.
And as a group, the kids were building out
what they wanted the app to do,
how they wanted to make a
difference in their community.
They also had to figure
out how they would know
if they were successful or not.
So we built it in theory.
But I did have some kids
that, on a different project,
they were looking more at
choose your own adventure-type activities.
So theirs was totally story writing.
But if I find the right program,
I will connect somehow and
let you know what that is,
because I'm looking App Maker
but it doesn't quite look
like what we used before.
But if that helps at all,
that's one use of developing a project.
And that one included communication,
mathematical thinking, well, it just,
everything was computational thinking
because they had to
decompose what the issue was.
Ooh, maybe, okay, so Sara's
pulling up MIT App Inventor.
It could be, yeah.
So take a look at some
of those, App Builder,
code.org and MIT App Inventor.
All righty.
- [Lisa] I agree, Tim.
(Lisa, Nancy and Sara laugh)
I just saw where you
said unplugged lessons
tend to be overlooked.
I couldn't agree more.
A lot of our fourth and
fifth grade teachers
overlook them very quickly.
And I think that they're so valuable.
We try to do them as much as we can.
- [Nancy] I think Michelle
is gonna unmute you, Tim.
There you go.
- Thanks.
Yeah, full disclosure,
I'm a code.org facilitator.
So I'm still learn, there's
a lot to learn still.
But I've enjoyed some of their strategies.
And I see we have one
friend from Virginia,
and I got to be part
of the Virginia Coaching
Academy this summer.
Virginia's rolling out
the elementary standards.
I believe they're the
first state in the country
to fully integrate elementary
computer science standards
into their curriculum.
I really like what Virginia's
doing in that regard,
just putting it into
every curriculum area.
They're doing a very good job
from what I got to see this summer.
- [Sara] I'd love to hear Kelly
about your ideas for K-5 vocab.
- [Kelly] Can you hear me?
- [Nancy] Yes!
- [Kelly] Awesome.
I'm assigned to a school
in the Bronx as a coach.
I'm on a contract there through a grant.
This is our second year working with,
how do we integrate computational thinking
into the curriculum?
And we've kind of, we think of it
as a universal language
for problem solving
across the curriculum.
It's almost like an umbrella that,
when elementary teachers are teaching math
or they're teaching science or ELA,
they can always refer to that language
in decomposing task, any task.
So the first year was a growing year,
but we were able to really
onboard the teachers
and the students
was through what we call a
monthly task in math and ELA.
So before I arrived, they
were trying to get kids
to do more collaborative work.
So they had, they were up to what we call,
I call 'em events, three events per month,
where every child in the
school works with a partner
to solve a problem in math twice a month
and then in ELA once a month.
So that time was dedicated
to really introducing
the language of computational thinking
of decomposition and bringing patterns
and using actually abstraction.
So we've been able to build
the faculty and students
over the course of these
events that happen each month
where they're feeling
extremely comfortable this year
with using the vocab in
their everyday lessons,
and get kids to think
about their thinking.
So it's kind of just using this event,
I call it the event per month,
and having the teachers
practice using the language
in problem solving with the kids
and asking the kids questions
during the share-out part of this event.
The entire school is really
developing their knowledge
about thinking about their thinking
for solving problems.
- [Nancy] Nice!
- [Kelly] It's pretty amazing
because it's really inquiry-focused.
So the teacher reads the problem,
reminds the students to don't forget
to think about computational
thinking skills
that they can use to solve the problem.
And then the teacher stops speaking
and the kids work collaboratively
and talk about different
approaches to solving the problem.
They actually solve the
problem as the teacher watches.
And then she calls on a couple of pairs
to share out their thinking,
and then she will say,
"Okay, during this process,
"what computational thinking
skills did you think you used?"
And there's no right answer.
One kid might justify
why they might have used
a lot of decomposition,
another might have said,
"I used abstraction."
We've had fourth grade
students talk very correctly
about how they used abstraction
in solving an ELA problem.
So it's kind of mind-boggling,
but it's working.
- [Nancy] Oh, that is awesome.
And I see Tim is asking, he said,
"Would you be willing to
share a model of that plan?"
And I think all of us are,
like, "Yes, us too, us too!"
So if you have a link to
something along those lines,
we would love for you to share that out.
- [Kelly] Yeah, I have,
my big issue right now is,
I'm trying to figure out
how to assess growth in thinking,
in computational thinking.
So we introduced this to the
kindergarteners this year,
who just joined the school.
And they, too, participate in these tasks.
Where I get my baseline in
the beginning of the year
and then how do I measure
at the end of the year?
So we're kind of
tinkering with videotaping
what we call the share-outs
and trying to code them.
So we're gonna try that as a community,
try to see if there's a way
to code a level of thinking
for a particular concept.
(Nancy speaks indistinctly)
(women speak simultaneously)
- [Lisa] I actually, I remember seeing
some of your examples
at CSTA this past year.
And it's just, I was just blown away
by some of the thinking that
the students were sharing.
- [Kelly] Yeah, it's
pretty neat, pretty incred.
And now it's year two,
so things are a lot,
we've grown a lot in the second year.
- [Lisa] Right, awesome.
Yeah, we'd love so see
some of your resources.
And then the assessment
part is always hard, right?
Like, how do you, especially
when you're assessing,
like, a thinking level.
So anyways, definitely
something that's gonna be a work
in progress for all of us
as we dig into this deeper.
- Nice.
- So let me--
- [Nancy] Yes, thank you so much.
Okay, we're gonna keep moving.
Our next area.
After students have an opportunity
to think about how to decompose a problem
and draw a visual to look for patterns,
they now enter into the third phase of CT
known as abstraction.
When we think about this,
helping students sift through
and remove extraneous information,
we want them to reveal essential
concepts and understandings
because those are valuable tools.
In math when students realize the concept
of hierarchical inclusion,
that all the numbers, preceding number
can be included in the
value of the number before,
or that specific number,
this is valuable in the
decomposition process.
So place value's also
valuable for abstraction
because students understand
that it helps them
to understand problem
solving across the board.
They play with values
of odd and even numbers
and they realize the patterns
help them to develop number sense.
Oh-oh, hold on.
Okay, so this is one thing
my students always love
when they figured out patterns
and they were able to draw a conclusion,
which they then put to a test.
For example, every year
in third or fourth grade,
students played around with numbers.
And someone finally made the statement,
"Hey, an even number plus an even number
"will equal an even number,"
or they came up with, "Did you know
"that an odd number plus an odd number
"also equals an even number?"
So when we talk about how this works,
we use visual models.
Or we write out our thinking
to confirm our thought process.
This writing helps us
think about our thinking
and it also serves to help
us defend our position.
Proving our thinking might look
something like the example of 11 plus 15.
Each number is broken apart
into a number plus one.
In this case, you guys can see 10 plus one
and 14 plus one.
So we have 10, 14, both evens,
and to this we add the one plus one,
which makes, you know, another even.
And when you add two odd numbers together,
what you're really doing is,
you're adding an even number,
in this case we say 10,
but what it breaks down to is,
instead of two odd numbers,
essentially you're adding
an even plus an even
plus an even number.
So the next step is, can
I write a rule for this?
And that's where I think
when you're talking
about assessing kids as part
of the computational thinking,
that would be one area, if
they can write a rule for that.
And that would just
let them know oh, okay,
yes, I'm thinking through
this and I'm thinking clearly.
- [Lisa] In language arts
in terms of abstraction,
we often discuss how to
effectively communicate a message,
whether this is through
oral communication,
written communication or
we're analyzing decisions
that authors make.
So what's key to get your message across?
Thinking about when we
ask students to summarize
or tell the main idea of something,
too often they'll retell the entire story
and provide too many details.
By using abstraction, we can focus
on what's essential
for sharing our message
and then think about what can be left out.
For example, if students are writing
about the relative size of
planets in our solar system,
they do not need to include information
about distances between planets
or temperatures of each planet,
atmosphere of each planet.
But they could include
information such as the diameter,
comparisons using ratios or proportions.
They can use while you're
editing a piece of writing,
during the planning stages,
or through discussion.
So it's just another lens to look at
how do we effectively
communicate our message,
what do you need and
what can you leave out?
- [Sara] In computer
science for abstraction,
young children can often develop
the concept of abstraction
by using sorting activities
and deciding what attributes will be used
to categorize like items.
We can also ask students to think about
what is not necessary in code.
What can be left out of the code
to help with meaning and for clarity?
One of my favorite
activities from code.org
is to give students code
and then ask them to debug
it or to simplify the code.
- [Lisa] So take another
moment, takeaways.
Are there questions you have?
Things that have sparked
you to think deeper?
Hop in that chat box again.
So Tim, debugging is
definitely a great strategy.
It's one that we go to a lot.
How can we think about
something a different way?
How can we pick it apart and
fix an error or a mistake?
- [Sara] And also that
errors are just opportunities
for growing and learning.
- [Nancy] And one thing I told Lisa--
- [Lisa] Academy they--
- [Sara] Yeah, go ahead.
- [Lisa] At Pi Academy
they talk about failure
is your first attempt in learning.
I love that.
I start the year with your
first attempts in learning.
It's okay, keep going.
- [Nancy] Yeah, that's important.
And I told Lisa earlier,
I said I'm gonna pop in
this YouTube address for Josh Darnit.
Because when she was
talking about the process
of telling kids how to do, you know,
like a to-do paper,
and so you're writing and
you're trying to explain
how to do something step by step,
then this video came up.
And it was a dad.
His name was Josh.
And he is trying to get his children
to write and tell him how to
make a peanut butter sandwich.
So it is hysterical because the daughter
continually comes back and
she's refining, refining.
But the son, at one point
he just looks at him.
And you can just tell it's
just utter disgust. (laughs)
He does not want to do it.
But it's very nice as
far as the kids learning
precision and language
and how computers also
think in this manner.
They're only gonna do exactly
what you tell them to do
and nothing more.
And I thought what he was showing
was just a perfect run-through
of how to do something step by step.
- [Sara] Absolutely,
Paige, about perseverance.
- [Nancy] Yes.
Thank you.
Okay, and so the final phase
of computational thinking
is algorithmic design,
the step-by-step directions
on how to perform a task
or form a solution.
When students were able to
look at the parts of a problem
and then have the time
to ponder the problem,
to draw visuals, to use manipulatives,
they can also think through their work
in order to find patterns.
At this point,
essential enduring
understandings are abstracted
which lead them to the final step
of being able to put a plan in place
or mathematical terms
to develop an algorithm.
Let's put our computational
thinking to the test
on the problem above.
So think of yourself as your students.
If I'm a student seeing this
problem in a number talk
and combining what I knew about CT,
my first thought is to decompose.
What am I being asked to do,
and what strategies do I know?
Revealing patterns is my next step in CT.
I can do this from making a visual model,
using a What I See table,
I can use manipulatives,
or I can begin drawing it out
on paper in a different way.
Next, I think about what
is important to know.
Hierarchical inclusion is very important.
In this particular
problem, I begin thinking
of what numbers can be used
to make up each number.
I can picture the magnitude of the number
and I can visualize
the numbers and the sum
on a number line.
I consider the place value of each digit.
And then finally I think
about past discussions
regarding odd and even numbers.
So we're getting ready to
conduct a quick response
as you would in a number talk.
So put yourself in your
student's shoes for a moment.
Find the student icon
the top of your screen.
And I need you to respond.
So here's your question.
Will you please raise your hand
if you think the sum will be odd.
Also, I have one more part,
I want you to defend your
answer in the chat box.
So raise your hand if you
think the sum will be odd
and defend your answer, please.
We're gonna take just a moment.
And thank you for being
kids for just a moment.
Okay, all right.
So we're going to move on
and we're gonna clear
out our responses here.
I'll put it back to Raise Hand.
Here's your second question.
Will you please raise your hand
if you think the sum will be even.
And I need you to defend your answer.
Ooh, Dianne, I like I'm thinking
of the many different ways
to solve the problem.
Yes, yes.
That's always a very good strategy.
(laughs) Tim, I love it!
(laughs)
Yes, evaluating is a CT skill.
Thank you.
Okay, one more question.
Remember to think as your students would,
and now respond in the chat
window to this question.
Will the sum be greater or less than 100?
Make sure you defend your answer.
Okay, we're gonna take
just a couple more seconds.
So through participating
in this online number talk,
you have just completed a sample
of how we could use CT in the classroom.
During a number talk, because
we decomposed the numbers,
we looked for patterns, we abstracted
by thinking of the properties of addition
that we can use to solve,
and then we're working
through a final solution.
And now we're gonna turn it over to Lisa.
Oh, I like the estimating by rounding up.
Yes, very nice.
Paige, thank you.
- [Lisa] Language arts,
oh yeah, yeah, go ahead.
(women speaking over each other)
Yes, we had lots of good
thinking over on the side.
And people reducing computational
thinking to a shorter list
and just not really
thinking of broader is hard
because there's all
sorts of different skills
that go into being a computational thinker
and in the programming, we try to isolate
all these just individual skills,
we're not really getting
the bigger picture.
So in language arts, algorithmic design
can take the form of
creation or directions
to complete a task, whether that's
how to build a peanut
butter and jelly sandwich,
like Nancy talked about,
or how to draw a certain
image, create a letter,
or how to complete tasks
within a classroom.
Using that precise language is really key.
It's also gonna lead to conversations
about what makes a story,
what are necessary elements
to build a narrative,
thinking about the exposition,
rising action, climax,
what's that formula or
algorithm for a good story,
or is there one?
What happens when our writing
becomes too formulaic?
Can we start with a basic
algorithm for a story,
and then how do we deviate from there?
How do we iterate and make it our own?
This also can lead into
really good discussions,
you know, thinking about AI in algorithms
writing news stories.
And there's even some article out there
about can an algorithm
write a better news story
than a human reporter?
And then how do you know?
So it can lead to some
deeper conversations as well.
- [Sara] Students in
elementary years can start
to develop a sense of algorithmic design
by noticing that most
programs have a certain syntax
that others understand
when they're trying to follow programs,
such as direction, repeats,
and if-then statements.
Flow charts can be used
to organize the events in a sequence.
For example, students
might use flow charts
to explain certain steps in the process
of making a peanut butter
and jelly sandwich,
like Lisa's example.
And they will eventually start to see
the basic flow of coding.
Most start with an event,
have a sequence of actions,
and then have an ending.
This knowledge can then be translated
to harder coding concepts
such as if-then statements and variables.
One example that I love
to do with students is
to lead students through
algorithmic design
and through an unplugged activity
of happy maps from code.org,
where students use arrows to
tell the character of the Flurb
which way to go and travel on the grid.
And then they use those arrows
to be able to tell somebody else
how to travel the Flurb
in order to get to the apple.
Let's kinda take this into a broader sense
and look at it into one activity.
Currently one of my favorite CS tools
for kindergarten through
second grade is KIBO.
I think this is a great
tool for K-2 in particular
because of its
easy-to-manipulate wooden blocks
and also the screen-free interface.
Students connect wooden blocks,
which have dowels and a hole,
to create a sequence of code.
Each block has a bar code
which can be scanned by KIBO
to program the robot.
I love that this robot
encourages young students to play
while working with
computer science concepts.
So to give you an example of teachers,
how they've used KIBO to
teach computer science,
let me tell you about one recent activity.
One of our librarians at one
of our elementary schools
has a semester-long maker space.
She asked for dads and
mentors in the community
to come in and lead the
stations of your choice.
Typically the mentors are parents
who have backgrounds in
coding or computer science
and often include information
about their careers.
So one of the centers
we planned around KIBO
in computer science was bowling with KIBO.
And about four students
and a mentor were tasked
with programming KIBO to bowl.
The plastic bowling pins were set up
at the end of the long sheet of paper,
a starting point was placed
right in front of the pins,
so the students could knock over the pins
with simple algorithm of
start, forward, and end block.
This allowed students to
think of the algorithm
as a basic decomposed manner.
And then the next step
was to challenge them
to continue thinking about the algorithm
in order for it to be
a little more complex.
So they had to start further
away from the bowling pin,
and then they had to use several forwards
in order for the KIBO to travel
the distance on the paper.
But we intentionally just left out
one forward block in the kit.
Their groups had to
decide how to program KIBO
where there were several
forwards in a row.
A pattern developed, and then they saw
that they would need a
forward, forward, forward,
and so on until they reached the pins.
They quickly realized that they would
have to scan the forward block seven times
in order for it to get to the end.
They later discovered they
had a repeat block in the kit
and realized that they
could use this block
instead of the multiple forward blocks.
Then the third challenge was
to start at a right turn,
and then continue down
the center of the paper
in order to knock down the pins.
The students coded originally left,
which is kind of a common
mistake for young kiddos
because they have a hard time
thinking about the
perspective of the KIBO.
The mentor was able to
talk to the students
about bugs and debugging at that time.
A simple engineering cycle developed
without the students being
explicitly taught these steps.
They looked at the big picture,
that they wanted to knock down the pins,
and break down into manageable pieces
by physically building the algorithm
with those code blocks.
Then they made it a
little bit more efficient
because they decided what
they really needed to do
was to move forward several times.
At the end, they tested their theory,
fixed when needed,
and then ran it again.
So the parent or the
dad that was with them
talked to them about
decomposing the algorithms
until they knew that there was an issue
and then they fixed it.
And the students were again able
to go through the thinking process
of looking at big picture, break it down,
ask what do we really need to do,
and then they tested the algorithm.
So I love this activity
because it kind of shows
all of the four parts that
we've been talking about.
The students were looking
at that task sequentially.
They used decomposition
in order to fix the bug in the program.
They were able to see that
pattern that was developing.
They were able to determine
that the repeating forwards weren't needed
and then use that repeat block
in order to make the
program more efficient.
And then at the very end,
they were able to develop
an algorithmic design
and apply it to some new programs.
For this poll, I'd love for you to tell us
what are some other extensions
that you think we can
try with this activity?
Oh, absolutely.
Think loops would be a great extension
for this activity
in determining how many times
that you could go forward.
Oh, I love that, Kelly.
Yeah, programming the KIBO to go
to different letters of the
alphabet on the grid map,
spell a word and find numbers.
That's an awesome activity.
I love that.
Right, that's awesome.
So I've got a quote just
to kind of wrap it up.
So the creator of KIBO, Marina Bers,
she was quoted as saying,
"Coding can become a playground,
"an environment to be
creative, to express ourselves,
"to explore alone and with other,
"to learn new skills,
and to problem solve.
"All of this, while having fun."
I think that just kind of sums up
what computational thinking is all about
in computer science,
is that playground in
order to be expressive
and to be able to create.
- [Nancy] And this is an
incredibly wordy slide
which we're not reading.
But (chuckles) I just
wanted you to take a look
at the standards for
mathematical practice.
As you glance through, you can just see
that every part of computational thinking
is woven throughout mathematical practice,
beginning with number talks
at the beginning of a lesson,
giving our turn in talk time in the class,
making visual representations
during our small groups,
and also providing
opportunities for our students
to have discussions using
mathematical discourse,
and then also just making sure
that you have a final debrief
at the end of each one of your classes.
- [Lisa] Then thinking
about English language arts,
and I know again this is a lot to look at.
But since we all have different standards
and different states,
then thinking about guiding visions.
This is from NCTE.
Overall, though, thinking about
how can we incorporate
using different ways?
There's not one way.
And looking at innovative
and creative ways to do that
absolutely include
critical thinking skills
and computational thinking.
I really love that, when we
can bring in different avenues.
So whether we're coding a story
and programming a robot
to act out something,
like the characters,
or if we are just journaling
about our experiences,
we could interweave those thinking skills,
whether you were debugging,
you were decomposing,
you use an algorithm throughout the day,
and it's not just in this time
where we do computer science activities.
- [Sara] Of course we can't talk about CS
without the ISTE standards for students.
And this is the computational
thinker strand in here.
It just so happens that
I got my SD Magazine
in the mail today.
And there was a booklet included
on computational thinking
meeting student standards.
Has some great practical
ways of implementing that.
So if you are an SD member,
check that out in your mailbox.
- [Nancy] All right, so here's
a listing of our resources.
We're gonna have to go pretty speedily.
But we want to thank you
for joining our webinar
on viewing elementary CT
from different perspectives.
This webinar was meant
to provide awareness
as to what computational thinking is,
how it can be easily integrated
into a variety of curricular areas,
and to provide you with resources
that you can use in your class tomorrow.
Okay.
We're gonna have a survey at the very end,
so if you can hold on for
about 30 more seconds.
And if you enjoyed this webinar
and are looking for more resources
for elementary, middle and/or high school,
please register with CS for All Teachers.
It's csforallteachers.org,
the account is free,
and our community of
ambassadors are all educators.
All the information provided tonight
and through our community
group webinars, blogs,
multimedia presentations, Twitter chats,
they're all derived from being tested
in the classroom first.
So we invite you to make
an account and join us,
and you can access CS for
All Teachers at any time.
The best part is, you
get to do it in your PJs
most of the time.
So at this time, I'm gonna
turn it over to Michelle Perry.
- [Michelle] Thank you,
Nancy, Sara and Lisa.
This has been a wonderful webinar.
Thank you all for attending.
Feel free to follow us on Twitter
at CS for All Teachers,
minus the vowels in the teachers part,
or come visit us on our website.
And we'll be posting
new events each month.
Check out our events calendar.
Thanks again, have a good evening.
- [Nancy] Good night, everyone.
Thank you for coming and
thank you for contributing.
Aw, Paige, Kelly, Tim, thank you so much.
That means a lot.
Thank you, Dianne.
