in reply to OT: Teaching Second Graders Programming

Bubble sort is clever .. but as a former shortest kid in the class, sorting by height can be uncomfortable. Possibly for the tallest kid too, if a girl. The alphabetical order of their last names is very familiar to them; for interest purposes, perhaps sort on first names or last letter of name.

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Re^2: OT: Teaching Second Graders Programming
by Limbic~Region (Chancellor) on Mar 27, 2014 at 15:13 UTC
    GotToBTru,
    The idea was to - at the end, ask them "what if we weren't sorting based on height, what if we were sorting based on age or name - would it still work"? To get them to explore the idea of re-usable algorithms. I get the whole height thing being self-concious. Instead, what I would likely do is have them hold a sign with a number on it. I plan on doing the "make a sandwich" experiment as my first option but fall back to this if there are any severe nut allergies.

    Cheers - L~R

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