Coding in the classroom has always been an interest to me, Hour of Code is a great resource for any teacher especially those just starting out. For the past two years we have been doing Hour of Code during the Hour of Code week and that has been the most coding we do all year. What I wanted in my classroom was more coding, because I think coding could be the future for most of my students. I also believe that coding can be a gateway to other mathematical principles that are taught in the classroom such as: growth mindset, support productive struggle, and promote reasoning and problem solving.
So we have started in the math classroom is using one day a unit to work on these skills by implementing a way for students to apply their mathematical knowledge and coding. Students are given a task write code to make a calculator to solve an inequality. Students had to write code in Trinket.io to write their inequality.
We were going to use Swift by my Seniors do not have the iPads supported to do it, so we decided for everyone to use Trinket. Some students really loved the problem solving aspect of coding, using the blocks to get the numbers to do what they want them to do. Other students were not happy about trial and error process to finding the answer.
I have some other upcoming units to try this out with like Pythagorean Theorem.
I wanted to do another coding project after "Code Day" I thought the students would benefit from seeing it again. We had a day between our short chapter on sequences/series and NeSA review of next week. In class we introduced arithmetic sequences, geometric sequences, and series. I programmed the BB-8 with a code and asked students what the sequence was, then what the rule was?
Students explained that the sequence was 3, 6, 9, .....
Then what the rule was? Adding three every time.
Then I gave them code and asked them again what the sequence was suppose to look like and what the rule was.
The 10 degrees was to keep it on the number line.
I asked what the sequence should be. Some students said 2, 4, 6, 8, ...
I was impressed with my students, because they asked how far was 2 seconds at 50% speed. So we played it with the BB-8 and it was somewhere between 2 and 3.
I asked them to download the "Tickle" app.
Students then were to create their own sequence where the BB-8 had to move across the number line. Students had to take a screen-shot of the code and write what the sequence was on Notability and include the photo.
I was incredibly impressed with the amount of effort put in to it. Even with just one BB-8 from Sphero all students had the chance to get test their BB-8's code.
Here is an example of student's code:
It was a great activity for students to use code and their knowledge of sequences and rules together.
