Unit 7: Create Performance Task

Overview

In Unit 7, students will complete the Create Performance Task that must be completed in the spring for their exam.

The questions students will explore in this unit include:

• How can you use computational solutions for a purpose?
• What is an algorithm?
• How can you use abstraction to manage complexity?
• How does a program function?

Estimated Time:

3 weeks (students must spend at least 12 hours on the actual Create Performance Task)

Computational Thinking Practices

• Practice 1: Computational Solution Design: Design and evaluate computational solutions for a purpose.
  • 1.A Investigate the situation, context, or task.
• Practice 2: Algorithms and Program Development: Develop and implement algorithms.
  • 2.B Implement and apply an algorithm.
• Practice 3: Abstraction in Program Development: Develop programs that incorporate abstractions.
  • 3.B Use abstraction to manage complexity in a program.
  • 3.C Explain how abstraction manages complexity.
• Practice 4: Code Analysis: Evaluate and test algorithms and programs.
  • 4.A Explain how a code segment or program functions.

Big Ideas

Big Idea 3: Algorithms and Programming (AAP)

Programmers integrate algorithms and abstraction to create programs for creative purposes and to solve problems. Using multiple program statements in a specified order, making decisions, and repeating the same process multiple times are the building blocks of programs. Incorporating elements of abstraction - by breaking problems down into interacting pieces, each with their own purpose - makes writing complex programs easier. Programmers need to think algorithmically and use abstraction to define and interpret processes that are used in an program.

Enduring Understandings

• AAP-1 To find specific solutions to generalizable problems, programmers represent and organize data in multiple ways.
• AAP-2 The way statements are sequenced and combined in a program determines the computed result. Programs incorporate iteration and selection constructs to represent repetition and make decisions to handle varied input values.
• AAP-3 Programmers break down problems into smaller and more manageable pieces. By creating procedures and leveraging parameters, programmers generalize processes that can be reused. Procedures allow programmers to draw upon existing code that has already been tested, allowing them to write programs more quickly and with more confidence.
• AAP-4 There exist problems that computers cannot solve, and even when a computer can solve a problem, it may not be able to do so in a reasonable amount of time.

Projects and Major Assessments

• Complete the Create Performance Task
• Video of CPT
• Written Responses regarding CPT
• Screenshots regarding CPT
• PDF of CPT

Materials Needed

• CPT Educator PowerPoint decks
• CPT Student Activities
• Mock Create Performance Task Checklist & Template
• Planning Page for Create Performance Task
• Scoring Guidelines: Create Performance Task
• Student Handout: Create Performance Task
• Internet access to these sites:
  • arcade.makecode.com