Teaching CS Fundamentals Remotely
At Code.org, we understand learning will have to be reimagined for most students this Fall. We put together a set of recommended modifications for teachers to adapt our CS Fundamentals lessons for virtual learning or socially-distanced classroom environments.
General Modifications
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Virtual Asynchronous |
|---|---|
| What is it? | |
| Students are learning from home at their own pace. The teacher can give assignments by email or LMS. Live whole-class video sessions are not usually an option. | |
| How to modify? | |
| Provide a weekly suggested assignment from your choice of either Courses A-F, an Express Course, or our selection of Hour of Code tutorials. Recommend students work to complete as many puzzles from the lesson as they can, or to work for a set period of time. Consider skipping unplugged lessons in Courses A-F if they cannot be “digitized”. |
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Virtual Synchronous |
|---|---|
| What is it? | |
| Students are learning from home but are connected with the teacher and their classmates over video during live lessons. | |
| How to modify? | |
| Follow the guidance for Virtual Asynchronous above. Additionally, if breakout groups are a possibility, give students a group or buddy to help support them as they work through a lesson at the same time. |
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Socially-Distanced Classroom |
|---|---|
| What is it? | |
| Students are learning at school, but with additional constraints around classroom space and safety procedures. | |
| How to modify? | |
| Consider modifying unplugged lessons to be done at a distance, such as having partners collaborating orally rather than on paper. If you do have enough devices, forgo pair programming. If not, consider a “stations” approach, sanitizing devices before having partners swap roles. |
Course Modifications
Each of Course A-F has a modifications document, below, designed to help you create a plan to implement as many of the lessons as possible for your situation. Suggestions are provided for teacher preparation steps, teaching strategies, callouts for tricky lessons, and specific modifications for these lessons.
Modification documents are available on CSF course landing pages, and linked below for your convenience.
Click below to access the modifications directly:
Course A | Course B | Course C | Course D | Course E | Course F
Monitoring Progress
You can track your students’ progress from your teacher dashboard. We recommend recording videos or emailing your student to cheer them on or provide targeted feedback.
Remember that some CSF puzzles are intentionally quite challenging! We do not recommend requiring all students to finish every puzzle in every lesson unless they feel ready. This is particularly important when students are working on their own.
If you are not teaching CS Fundamentals but are interested in helping students learn computer science at home, be sure to visit code.org/athome for more activities, including resources for students with no computers or internet access.
Where can I get help?
You are highly encouraged to share any questions or insights right here on the forum! You can also email us at support@code.org. We are here to help!
Cheers,
Mike & The CS Fundamentals Team
Want to know about our modifications for CS Discoveries? Check out this forum post.
Want to know about our modifications for CS Principles? Check out this forum post.
For more resources visit code.org/athome.