1 of 17

Understanding

Computers and Ourselves

Combining CS and Social Emotional Learning

in Elementary School

2 of 17

Who we are

Kate Fractal

Electrical Engineering Major at WPI
Five years working in industry, including software and hardware jobs
Six years Teaching Math and CS

Katie Semine

Master of Education at Tufts
Seven years teaching grades K-3
Social skills teacher extraordinaire

3 of 17

This curriculum

Created in collaboration for 2nd & 3rd grade
Taught once a week for 75 minute block, all year long
First semester is concepts and big ideas
Second semester is Scratch programming
Plan to make curriculum materials available online soon

4 of 17

Social Emotional Learning

Metacognition
Perspective taking
Communication

Active listening: asking questions
Responding to feedback

5 of 17

Computer Science

Algorithms
Data Structures
Programming Languages
Computer Architecture
Debugging

6 of 17

The overlap

Taking the perspective of the computer
Processing information
Remembering information
Communication!
Feedback

7 of 17

Teaching Methods

Discussion
Games
Songs
Hands-on
Drawing
Online activities
Dance

8 of 17

Scavenger Hunt for Computers

Big idea: A computer “computes”, i.e. processes information

9 of 17

Computer Disassembly

Big Idea: In a computer, memory is separate from processing.

10 of 17

Cloud Watching

Big idea: Humans automatically process information

11 of 17

Memory Games and Mnemonics

Big idea: Humans remember through processing. Computers only remember what you tell them to remember.

12 of 17

Communication games

Big idea: Programming is a form of communication!

13 of 17

Coordinate Dance

If you want to be a hero,

start the dance at zero comma zero

y++ 0,0

Y-- 0,0

X++ 0,0

X-- 0,0

And that’s how you do the coordinate dance

14 of 17

Key Ideas (a summary)

Humans automatically process information and remember through processing.
For computers, memory and processing are separate.
Computers only remember what you tell them to remember.
Programming is a form of communication!

Going beyond Computers are not magic: They only do what you tell them to.

processing->algorithms

memory->data structures

Data structures deserve more of our attention than they are getting currently

(psychology of learning)
Von Neumann architecture
Introduction to variables
While I don’t expect students to come out of this curriculum able to express verbally these key idea, I do expect them to have these as intuitive background notions. My observation is that the students who see these ideas in 2nd or 3rd grade, by the time they get to 5th grade they can do much more advanced programming. I want to My first year teaching 5th grade CS at Acera we did scratch, and the kids struggled with conditional statements and variables, typical hard stuff. One of the goals behind this class was to prepare students for dealing with variables and so far it seems to be working.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Von_Neumann_Architecture.svg

15 of 17

Any questions?

16 of 17

Bonus slide: Floppy Discs

17 of 17

Bonus slide 2: More cloud watching