Finalize pathways for grades 5-8

[flannery-denny]

For any lesson that is getting modified, make a copy, prefix it em-, save it in the early math folder.

• [x] Deploy #1441
• [x] Decide whether pathways should start with DS or Early Math materials
• [ ] see #1374 for other thinking we've done.

All lessons should be self-contained. Nobody should ever have to teach part of a lesson. Currently some materials meet 5th grade goals, but 5th graders couldn't do the full lesson based on where they'll be at with math or whether the programming investment is worth it for that portion of a lesson.

Lessons we've identified as ones we'd like to add in grade level pathways and can be done easily(see #1374)

• [ ] Simple Inequalities - can we simplify the starter file?
• [x] making game images - make a version of the starter file that stops at screenshot
• [x] Box Plots - provide code on summarizing columns
• [x] Measures of Center - provide code on summarizing columns
• [x] Histograms - complete #1414 first

Lesson we've identified as ones we'd like to add in grade level pathways but may have to wait

• [ ] ~Flags - make a simplified version that isn't dependent on defining values~
• [ ] contracts - Thinking about this should wait til #1466 is done.
• make a lesson that gets to image-producing functions without math functions that are beyond 5th grade
• making tables and displays - make a version that focuses on displays (remove sort and count)
• [ ] #397

Once Early Math Lessons include programming components (which all use strings and images!), it makes sense to start with ds-intro, simple-datatypes, and contracts.

Other possibilities

• [ ] Surface Area of Rectangular Prism
• [ ] Data Cycle
• [ ] Bar and Pie Charts
• [ ] Shape of Data/histograms 2
• [ ] Scatter Plots
• [ ] Coordinates

[schanzer]

@flannery-denny and @retabak Thanks for fleshing this out! A few comments about each of your proposed changes:

Order of Operations - right now that lesson is a "kitchen sink" for BS:A, which includes a million extra pages for various math levels. The Early Math pathway does a much better job of digging deep into what Circles should look like for various levels. I'd like you to think instead about getting rid of this lesson entirely, replacing it with either a lesson from Early Math or a new lesson that bridges from Early Math to Algebra

Contracts - don't make a new one, please. Just take out the non-grade-level stuff from out existing contracts page. OR - crazy idea - redo this lesson so it matches the structure of the DS-contracts lesson. I'd love to return to a world where those two pathways share a lesson, and the only difference is which contracts are used to bridge to Circles. Happy to go into more depth on this, if you want to add it to our meetign agenda.

Contracts for Tables and Displays - Little kids can sort and count. Why bother taking these out?

Making Game Images - if we're not having younger students write functions, then they're not going to be able to make the game at all.

Flags - defining values isn't the hard part here. Composing and nesting is. Removing defining values actually makes the hard part harder. I think we need a completely different lesson here, and I'd want to better understand the learning goals before we pull the trigger.

DS lessons - if we're already having them learn contracts, why do we need to provide them with code?

[flannery-denny]

@schanzer I think you've misunderstood our proposal. We should discuss in a meeting.

• At a base level, the point is to increase the number of lessons that teachers of younger grades will think are a good use of their time.
• When we say make a new lesson we mean: copy the existing lesson and cut whatever part is irrelevant to the learning goals for lower grades and makes the lesson unnecessarily long or complex. then save it as the lower grade version. This was your proposal back in 2021. The hard part was making time to do the thinking about what lessons to change and how. Why are you objecting to it now?

More specifically:

• I disagree that we should get rid of Order of Operations.
• I think the contracts lesson we are proposing would be quick to make and well -received.
• Contracts for Tables and Displays - Little kids can sort and count. Why bother taking these out? What?! I don't know where to start with this logic.
• The point of the new starter file for making game images is that it might be fun for students to make a screenshot even if they aren't going to make a game (and it addresses a number of lower middle school learning goals to do so)
• would love to discuss flags more.
• @retabak had a strong feeling about the need to provide code on those two pages.

[schanzer]

@flannery-denny I'm sold on the game screenshot starter file. No need to wait for me to add that.

Sounds like the rest needs a curriculum-team discussion, so I've added it to our agenda.

[retabak]

@flannery-denny - Emmanuel and I chatted about this offline and discovered some philosophical differences that we agreed to has out during next team meeting with you present!