Unit 5. Data Manipulation
Revision Date: Oct 15, 2015 (Version 1.2)Overview
In this lesson, students will complete a miniature version of the Create Performance Task.
Summary
Session 1: Students define, design and start to implement a programming project.
Session 2: Students complete implementing the project.
Session 3: Students create presentations and share with groups the projects they developed and how their project used abstractions.
Students practice choosing a project and planning how to implement it in a fixed time frame.
Students have just two days to plan and implement a project. Since these will be small projects, students may need help using algorithms and data abstraction. Since an algorithm is a list of steps that comes to a conclusion, if students develop pseudocode for their projects they can refer to the pseudocode as their algorithm.
Students may receive most of the credit from an incomplete project if the project demonstrates the required components.
For this practice task, teachers may want to provide program stubs. Stubs could include suggested functions.
Present an overview of the Create Task.
Explain that students will have 12 hours to complete the Create Task later in the course and they will three 50-minute sessions for this practice. The actual Create Task will have a formal collaborative component and be larger in scope.
Discuss the following guidelines for the full project and the practice project we will be doing.
Three components to create:
General:
One project - individual with collaboration in stages
12 hours of classroom time
Project must use functional and data bastraction.
Report: Written responses must (maximum of 300 words each):
a. name the programming language used
b. describe the purpose, how your program code works and the most important features and algorithms
c. explain the video
d. describe the development process
e. explain an abstraction and how it helped manage complexity
f . explain two points of collaboration
For this practice task, students will complete simpler project and a one-minute presentation about it, rather than a video and a report.
Students work individually to select projects, then in pairs to review project selection and pseudocode.
After completing the project, students will create a one-minute presentation about it.
The presentation must address at least points b, d, and e above.
Projects are chosen by the student. If they wish, their projects may be based on the following labs from How to Think Like a Computer Scientist.
Labs
Students select a project and share their ideas with partners.
After collaborating with partners, students submit to their teacher a brief description of the project describing its most important features and how it will work.
Students develop pseudocode for their project and then share their pseudocode with their partners.
Students complete a brief journal entry describing:
Students work to implement and test projects. Teachers may evaluate student performance based on student journal entries and their observations of their effort in implementing the project.
Students reflect on their project and making journal entry of how they used abstraction in the project.
Students begin by individually responding to these prompts about their project:
b. describe the purpose, how your program code works and the most important features and algorithms
d. describe the development process
e. explain an abstraction and how it helped manage complexity
Students prepare one-minute presentaion about their projects including their responses to prompts b, d and e.
Students present their project to table groups. Time the presentations so that they do not exceed 1 minute. Students share with table groups what they like about the project, what they learned and any questions they have.
Students create exit slips with any questions they have about the Create Task after viewing and discussing the presentations.
For the practice task, project descriptions and pseudocde for each proposed project should be assessed. Assessment can be done by collaborative partners first. If partners have concerns, they should be brought to the teacher. If student projects are too big or too small in scope, teachers should provide feedback.
The project should be scored using the latest rubric provided by the College Board.
The latest rubric (updated as of April 2015) is in the lesson folder. Only the individual part of this rubric should be used.