So my name is Luke bony and I'm the head of mathematics and professional learning
here at come on Ash science cool so the class you saw today was a year 12 class
and the students in it were of mixed ability so some students in there have
done a lot of coding and a lot of algorithm designs in the past with
others word justice is brand new to them teaching method john monash is really
about trying to get students to engage in the actual problem solving and logic
so we do a lot of work with students to try and really get them to understand
how mathematics works and not just wrote learn formulas the students have done a
lot of work in the lead-up to this around what abstract data types are and
how we use them in actually modeling algorithmic problems and we've just
started looking at things like time complexity of algorithms and writing
pseudocode for algorithms so that's what this west ones are actually about
actually figuring out how to write the pseudocode to describe an algorithm so I
structured a lesson with an engagement the beginning which was the video on
bubble sorting and the video okay is basically modeling how a particular
sorting algorithm works your task is going to be to actually watch it and
then try and write down the pseudo code that describes that algorithm so the
video just showed basically a group of people doing a Hungarian dance as a
representation of the bubble sort algorithm I would recommend that you
take some notes as you're watching this so that you can kind of remember how
this is actually going it's from there I gave students the ability to it first
work individually to try and give them process time to actually interpret what
it is in that kind of because in that classroom the students who have done a
lot of coding before and have a lot of experience tend to want to dominate the
class it's ones who are not as familiar with it I'm often don't get as much time
to kind of process and really have a go themselves then the group work to give
them a chance to discuss and share ideas and and kind of build their
understanding your next task is in groups of either two or three I want you
to share what you've done and want you to refine your models based on that
discussion if it needs it and just try and get a real
the comprehensive idea together of what your algorithms actually end up being
okay so from looking at that right you're looking at for every element in
the array so you look at it and you swap it if it's and if it doesn't move you
believe it basically then the wrong either you all with you yeah and if it
doesn't service Emily move to the next I'm just realistic so what would be the
time complex whippets about going badly yeah yeah interesting then there was the
co-construction on the board where students shared their ideas we talked
about and kind of flesh it out a bit me they kind of at the answer from that and
then the demonstration where they actually went away and come found their
algorithm under the chair and had a go at actually producing an explanation of
that in the time that we had take a look under your chairs putting the things
under the chair for students to get up and actually check under the chair that
was designed as a different way of getting them into groups rather than
just their friendship groups so you've had a look under there you've each got a
type of sorting algorithm what I want you to do is actually do a stop motion
video okay of how that sorting algorithm would sort okay I've got five numbers
okay though just want to show how that would actually sort it
the reflection at the end giving them the anonymity and a choice of what type
of reflection actually going to give me whether it's something that they were
struggling with or something that they want to learn more about now up here I
have some yellow personhood and some purple ones what I want you to do is I
want you to choose either something that you didn't understand from today's
worsen and write it on this post and that or something that you'd like to
learn more about from this lesson and then write that on a yellow or green
post on that whichever color is the next trip will be to actually look at it and
collate it and see if there's any particular threads which are common and
then address them in future lessons so on a brief look over there was a lot of
purple posted notes around quick sorts and so obviously the people who are
working on quick sorts want to learn a bit more about how to actually work