Do you teach or talk about…..

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Do you teach or talk about…..

Posted on August 28, 2023 by in Coding This post is public.

When teaching code do you go over flowcharting or pseudo-code prior to teaching the language? I know my kids want to get straight to getting in iPads and coding, which is great, but this year I plan to teach flowcharting and pseudo-coding first. My thoughts are that learning these to skills can help to plan out how the code will work before just diving in.

Tagged in: Swift, Swift Playgrounds, iPad, Coding

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Answer 1 · August 28, 2023

Hi Jeremy,

I teach my ELA students block based coding from the approach that it is similarly structured like writing an essay with a beginning, middle and end. The instruction is paired with learning Shakespeare and having them write code to act out an assigned scene from the play. This is a computational thinking perspective called ambiguity and exploration with the code is part of the learning process.

Answer 2 · August 29, 2023

★ Helpful

Posted on August 29, 2023 in response to jeremy In response to jeremy

We start with Keynote prototyping and planning with Freeform then get into coding.

Sometimes we also use Shortcuts to show the importance of having all the steps lined up for the right process.

Answer 3

★ Helpful

Posted on August 28, 2023 in response to jeremy In response to jeremy

Hi Jeremy,

I teach my ELA students block based coding from the approach that it is similarly structured like writing an essay with a beginning, middle and end. The instruction is paired with learning Shakespeare and having them write code to act out an assigned scene from the play. This is a computational thinking perspective called ambiguity and exploration with the code is part of the learning process.

Answer 4

Posted on August 29, 2023 in response to Pam7 In response to Pam7

That’s sounds really awesome. I’m honing to have yeti try something like that except 5th grade level

Answer 5

★ Helpful

Posted on August 29, 2023 in response to jeremy In response to jeremy

We start with Keynote prototyping and planning with Freeform then get into coding.

Sometimes we also use Shortcuts to show the importance of having all the steps lined up for the right process.

Answer 6

Posted on August 29, 2023 in response to MirCWalsh In response to MirCWalsh

Using shortcuts in that way is very innovative. Another tool I will try with my class. In Freeform are they using it an endless whiteboard for planning?

Answer 7

When teaching coding using Minecraft Education on iPad, I had a similar experience...With the first cohort, we went right into coding and I found that we often had to go back and talk about the thinking of certain approaches. Things that, in the second cohort, would prove to be best covered during the first few sessions before getting into actual coding on the iPads.

Sounds like your instincts are on point, in my opinion! :-)

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