Title: Conditional Application Cards
Author: Tammy and Kate
Date: March 29, 2004
Technique: Application Cards
Before Class Preparation Time: LOW
Class Completion Time: MEDIUM
In-Class Analysis Time: MEDIUM
Out-Of-Class Analysis Time: MEDIUM
Assessment Goals:
- Develop ability to apply principles and generalizations already learned
- Learn concepts and theories in the subject
- Develop capacity to think for oneself
- Develop ability to think creatively
- Develop ability to draw reasonable inferences from observations
Topics:
- Conditionals
- Real World Scenarios
- Applications
Purpose:
Instructors can find out how well students understand possible instances in which they use conditionals in their lives.
Activity:
We saw conditionals in a recent lecture. Here you have the opportunity to describe conditionals that you use in your everyday life.
Where do you use conditionals in your life? Describe the control flow and the events of these conditionals by drawing a diagram. Two examples appear below.
Example 1: If it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, I wake up at 7:00 am. Otherwise, I wake up at 9:00 am. Then I take a shower.
Example 2: If it's raining or rain is in the forecast, I take my umbrella. Then I go outside.
Solution:
Example 1:
Example 2:
Instructor Responses:
- Lecture
- Next Day Summary
- Class Discussion
- Small Group Discussions
- Homework
Response Analysis:
Read through the applications and sort or mark them as "Good," "Acceptable," "Marginal," or "Wrong." Read through the piles again to make sure that you have not accidently misclassified a response.
Choose three or four of the best examples from the "Good" pile. Emphasize understandability, but try to have a diversity of example domains. Also consider a few acceptable and marginal responses that highlight points you wish to discuss.
If you use an application in class as a bad or poor example, change the application just enough to disguise the example from the original authors.
Variant Uses of Activity:
- Have students write applications individually and submit these to the instructor anonymously. The instructor reads the applications and the class discusses the conditions in these applications. The instructor might want to describe what the code would look like for some of the applications.
- Each student writes an application and explains their application to the rest of the class.
- Break students into small groups (2-4 people) and have each group find two or more applications. Have each group explain their applications to the rest of the class.
Device-Enabled: Difficult to Enable
Related Topics:
- Iteration
- Functions
- Variables
- Decomposition