Professional Learning Goals

• Developed a plan of action to incorporate the use of coding and technology into the junior (Grade 6) and intermediate (Grade 8) classrooms
• Collaborated with colleagues of different grade levels to meet our mutual goals of incorporating coding programs into the mathematics program as a means of effective problem-solving
• Created a series of lessons that can easily incorporate coding into a math lesson at the two grade levels, and promoted the use of algorithms as an effective problem-solving strategy
• Broadened our understanding of the effective implementation using the three-part lesson

Activities and Resources

Our team used release time to develop a plan of action in order to explore different ways of effectively introducing coding to our middle school students. Initially, we agreed that we all were using good ideas, activities and both school and Internet resources to support student learning in the classroom. However, we felt the incorporation of all of these into our mathematics program was disjointed and ineffective. This release time gave us the opportunity to collaborate with each other, determine common goals, and finally to come up with a series of lesson plans that we could all use and/or modify depending on our grade levels and student abilities.  The three-part lesson allowed us the opportunity to add various entry points for students at different places in their learning, as well as creating potential areas of collaboration between groups of students at different grade levels.

These are the lessons were have created so far:

Lesson 1: Communicating with the Computer – Introduction to the Binary Language

Lesson 2: Points of View or Reference Points

Lesson 3: Introduction to Computer Languages

Lesson 4: Introduction to Coding

Lesson 5: Drawings, Animations and Game Design

Lesson 6: App Development

Lesson 7: Web Page Design

Unexpected Challenges

Our biggest challenge was being able to create a series of lessons that introduced coding to a wide range of learners. At the middle school level, students are coming to us with a variety of mathematics and computer skills. Some students come to Grade 6, 7 or 8 with a good working knowledge of computers, while others come with very little. This made is somewhat difficult in deciding where we wanted to start.

What we decided to do was to create a series of entry points for each lesson such that each student could work on the same learning goal with different activities, and yet still achieve success. Our team created a series of activities for Grade 6, 7 and 8, all with the same overall learning goal, but included four separate categories of  different learning activities to meet the needs of each learner. Part of this idea was that as students progressed through middle school, they would, hopefully, become more skilled and proficient in using a wider range of resources offered to meet similar goals. In addition, we also felt that organizing these lesson plans this way gave us the opportunity to look at ways of at doing cross-grade collaboration of students on a variety of projects.

Another challenge that we faced was although we do have a wide range of school resources available to us, it was difficult to find enough devices (iPads, Chromebooks, computers and robots) to be able to work with three classes simultaneously. Additionally, there was some equipment that required updates or replacement in order to run some of the more recent coding program, such as Swift Playgrounds. However, this gives us a list of equipment to request next year at our budget meetings.

Enhancing Student Learning and Development

This project will enhance student learning and development by strengthening their problem-solving,  analytical-thinking and communication skills by providing alternative ways of showing their mathematical thinking with more real-world activities and technology. The first lessons are designed to guide students through both independent and team practice, showing them a different thinking process using algorithms similar to how a computer processes information. Then, using these new skills, be prepared to create something new and purposeful.

As the students progress through the series of lessons, the focus is less and less on the practice of creating problem algorithms with a known solution, to creating an algorithmic solution to a problem in which the outcome is yet to be determined and then experimenting to find an effective solution.

Depending on where students start in our series of lesson plans, they should all have the ability to obtain some measure of success with the wide range of activities we have selected. Each student, regardless of aptitude, will be able to show their understanding of the concepts in coding, as well as select an alternative way to further enhance their math capabilities and problem-solving skills.

Sharing

Currently, this document is being shared through Google Documents by myself, our mentor and the other three collaborators on this team. We have talked to a few other teachers about certain concepts and their feasibility, and asked their opinions on our proposed lessons and project ideas.

Our plan at the moment is to share this document with our schools, especially our triads (team teachers). By sharing this document with them, we can each focus on our target group, whether it is Grade 6, 7 or 8.  From here, we can determine which parts and activities of the document best suit the needs of our students. We have come up with a lot of strategies based on the need for a range of activities for the three grade levels and any special needs. In addition, a lot of these activities can be integrated into the after-school coding and robotics clubs.

Continuing on, a lot our our assessments were generally listed as rubrics or checklists with the idea in mind that students and instructors would co-construct the criteria and constraints based on the classes’ individual needs and teacher expectations.

Project Evaluation

We feel that our project was successful. It turned out to be rather large, but we are happy with it. As we were working our document, we discovered that there is a vast amount of great ideas and activities that can be used to integrate coding into the mathematics curriculum. Our greatest difficult was choosing which ones to include in our lesson plan series.

In addition, we feel that we met our initial goals with the plan of action, the three-part lessons, and teacher collaboration to produce a working document suitable for all of us. We wanted a common plan of action with a series of lessons to follow so we all could improve a wide range of math and computer skills of our various students. We feel that we have created that plan of action with this document.

That being said, this document was a work-in-progress this year. We did not get the opportunity to try all of the activities and plans we came up with, with our students. This was disappointing, but also leaves us open to add new ideas and projects to the document to further enhance our program. Therefore, we are looking forward to next year to start implementing the lessons we have included within this document.

We are grateful that we have had the opportunity to work on this document, and to finally coordinate a set of ideas into an organized program that we can each take to our classrooms to introduce coding to our students.