IAZ :: Lesson 5

Lesson 5: Algorithmic Thinking (January 24th and 25th)

Link to Lesson:

Suggestions/Tips:

It is suggested that you follow the linked lesson closely. Make sure to cover the "Lesson Vocabulary" and "Computational Thinkng Concepts" listed at the end of the lesson.

If you do not have building blocks for this activity, you can also do the following:

Follow the same instructions in the lesson activity, but instead of having the students build the LEGO models, have them draw one of the following pictures:
Person 1 can look at the picture and give instructions
Person 2 and 3 may not look at the picture, but will attempt to draw the same picture based on Person 1's instructions
Person 4 will count the number of instructions given and write down instructions that were helpful or not helpful to the group

Corresponding QuizIt Questions:

The following questions are the same questions students will see when they log into QuizIt at the end of the lesson. Because each lesson is taught over a two day period, there are two questions on QuizIt that correspond to this lesson.

These questions are shown here as a "teacher-check" to ensure that the material asked in the question has been covered in the lesson. Please do not go over the answer to this question during the lesson. We want to see if the students can apply what they learned in class to answer this question.

1. What is algorithm design? (the correct answer is bolded)

Depicting and organizing data in approproate graphs, charts, words, or images

Creating an ordered series of instructions for solving similar problems

Observing patterns, trends, and regularieites in data
Gathering informaition

2. What is an algorithm?

Symbols only a computer can understand

A series of instructions that can be repeated over and over with the same result for a given input (e.g. recipe, computer software, sheet of music notes)

The part of a solution that does not work correctly
A high-level description intended for human reading rather than machine reading