TEACHING LOGIC AND PROBLEMSOLVING THROUGH COMPUTER SCIENCE Chris

TEACHING LOGIC AND PROBLEM-SOLVING THROUGH COMPUTER SCIENCE Chris Bolognese (cbolognese@uaschools. org) Upper Arlington High School

What Computer Science Is NOT Computer Science is not technical support.

What Computer Science Is NOT Computer Science is not word processing or typing.

What Computer Science Is Computer Science is problem-solving, computational thinking, and algorithm analysis.

What If I Don’t Teach CS? Even if you do not teach CS, the foundation of Mathematics rests on logic, problem-solving, inductive/deductive arguments, and efficiency. These exact traits are at the cornerstone of CS!

What Can You Use? • • • Light Bot Scratch Jeroo Alice Robots (Finch, Lego Mindstorms)

Light Bot (and Light Bot 2!) • Goal: Tell the Light Bot how to move to light up all the blue tiles. • Commands: forward right left jump light on other functions

Light Bot (and Light Bot 2!) • How would you get Light Bot to light up all the blue squares?

Light Bot (and Light Bot 2!) • What math connections can we draw to this task?

Light Bot (and Light Bot 2!) • How would you get Light Bot to light up all the blue squares?

Light Bot (and Light Bot 2!) • What math connections can we draw to this task?

Scratch • Scratch (developed at MIT) is a dragand-drop environment that is a free download.

Scratch • Toolbox: Sprite:

Scratch • Make the sprite that will draw a regular polygon.

Scratch • What math content or processes is a part of this task?

Jeroo • Jeroo is a free download where Kangaroos are controlled on an Column 0 island. Row 0 Code goes here Jeroos shown here

Jeroo • Every program has a “main” method and Jeroos need to be “instantiated” (which means “created”). Row Col Dir #Flowers

Jeroo • Write code for a Jeroo to leave flowers around the entire island’s perimeter.

Jeroo • What math content is evident in this task?

Alice • Alice is a free drag-and-drop environment with multiple objects in 3 -D. It was created at Carnegie Mellon.

Alice • Have a character ask for two numbers and say the sum of these numbers. What extensions can you think of that are possible in Alice?

Alice • An example of a sample Alice project used to teach Binary representations. . .

Robotics • Finch Robots • Lego Mindstorms

Reflection • We need to integrate more CS principles in with mathematics!

Reflection • I hope you have seen the power of CS in relation to mathematics! • I encourage you to integrate CS into your math courses to engage students in applied problem-solving and interdisciplinary creativity! Thank you for attending!