Summary
Dr. Beth Simon and her colleagues at the University of California San Diego have created a curriculum for upper elementary students that integrates CS into other disciplines. They call this curriculum the CS+Elementary Project.
This week you will be exploring parts of this curriculum and considering how integration of CS with other topics can work.
For this project, please work with the following groups:
| Unit | Group Members |
|---|---|
| CS+Fables Unit 1, 3rd Grade |
Kenadi Fay |
| Jason Huertero | |
| Colin Meester | |
| Carman Wise | |
| CS+Data Unit 2, 3rd Grade |
Julia Eastman |
| Lillian Gelsthorpe | |
| Kylee Leewright | |
| Kolben Miller | |
| CS+Community Unit 3, 4th Grade |
Reagan Damstra |
| MaKenna Fitzgibbons | |
| Izzy Kaiser | |
| Lexus Naber | |
| CS+Earth Unit 4, 4th Grade |
Alissa Briggs |
| Molly Cochran | |
| Bryce Coyle | |
| Taylor Urbanek |
Today's tasks
The Curriculum Framework & the TIPP Lesson
The main task for today is to explore the big picture and structure of the curriculum you will be studying. You won't yet be engaging with the integration content, but you will learn the structure of the website and about the framework the curriculum uses.
Each of the four curricula that will be studied in this project starts the same way — with an overview video for teachers and some materials to teach students about TIPP&SEE and using Scratch. While this section looks a little different from unit to unit, they all look similar to this:
Working together with the other members of your group, complete the following tasks in order. The times shown are targets, not hard limits.
- Watch the "Unit Overview Video" by clicking the "Teachers Start Here..." link at the top of the section. (5 min)
- Watch the "1. Overview Video" by clicking the link on the left side of the section. (3 min)
- Although both items carry the label "Overview Video," they are very different things. Please watch both.
Discuss with your group: Between the two videos, what is one thing you learned about this curriculum that surprised you, or that you want to know more about?
- Open and study the "Introductory Lesson Student Hyperdoc" by clicking the link on the left side of the section. (5 min)
- You will want to reference this document later as you study the four introductory week lesson plans.
Discuss with your group: The Student Hyperdoc is a document your students would use alongside the lessons. What is the benefit of giving students a document like this? Which element of the Hyperdoc do you think would be most helpful for students in capturing their thinking on paper?
- View the "Teacher Unit Resources" page by clicking the link in the site navigation. (5 min)
- You will be referencing many of these materials as you work through the curriculum's lesson plans.
- You don't need to understand everything in detail right now, but you do want a clear sense of what kinds of resources are available here.
Discuss with your group: You are just getting started with this unit, but take a quick look at the resources available here. Which resource caught your attention and why? What does its presence in this section tell you about what teachers might need to successfully run this curriculum?
- Work through the TIPP Introductory Lesson. (20–25 min)
- The curriculum website describes this as an approximately 50-minute lesson with students. As a teacher studying the lesson, you should be able to work through it in about half that time.
- As you work through the lesson, keep the questions below in mind. You will record your responses in the reflection document that collects your written work across all 8 days of this project.
For your project document
At the end of each day I will ask you to answer, on your own, some specific reflection questions about teaching, learning, and how that day's lessons and materials fit into the big picture of this curriculum and teaching computer science. Use the link below to make a copy of the reflection document. You will add your responses to this document throughout the project and submit it at the end.
Make a copy of the reflection document →
Day 1 Reflection Questions
Record your responses to these questions in your reflection document. Be prepared to discuss them with your group before the end of class.
- As you wrap up today, what aspect of this curriculum most appeals to you — either as a learner or as a future teacher? What question do you have that you hope will be answered as you continue exploring the curriculum over the coming days?
- The TIPP lesson moves through a structured sequence: Warm Up → Watch → UCSD Does → Turn & Talk → We Do → You Do → Reflect & Share. What is the teacher's role in each phase, and what is the student's role? What does this progression assume about how students learn something new?
- TIPP asks students to read a program before running or modifying it — identifying the Title, Instructions, and Purpose before they Play. This is a deliberate reading strategy applied to code. What reading strategies do you already know — strategies like previewing, making predictions, or using text features — that work similarly? How does bringing those strategies into a CS lesson change what it means to "do computer science" in an elementary classroom?