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Computer Science in K-12

An A to Z Handbook on
teaching programming
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Introduction Video

Discussion Questions

Discussion/Reflection Questions & Activities
  • The Story Variables activity is described on pages 69 and 236. The version of the activity shown on page 69 is an adaptation by Phil Bagge of the original activity (on pg 236) designed by Grover & colleagues. How might you adapt the activity for your students to be more culturally relevant or contextually more relevant/relateable to your students? Share and discuss your ideas, and create a lesson plan for your activity.
  • Our learning goals for various concepts vary by our context— the grade/age of our students, the learning setting, prior experience, etc. Which of the following learning goals related to variables do you address in your teaching? What pedagogy do you adopt to address these? Which ones are problematic for your students, and in what way? How do you address student difficulties?
    V0 Variables are used to represent data “types” of different kinds
    V0a Different data types serve different purposes. Some data types are string, numeric, list, array, record.
    V0b Data types determine the kinds of operations that can be performed on the variables
    V1 Variables hold only one value at a time.
    V2 Use a variable in a program
    V2a Use a Boolean variable to control a loop
    V2b Use an expression with a variable to control a loop
    V2c Use an expression with a variable in a conditional
    V3 How to update a variable value (in different ways)
    V3a How to update a variable value for a variety of purposes (counting, aggregating, flag, etc)
    V3b Updating a variable value within a loop
    V3c
    Update a loop-controlling variable value within a loop
    V3d Using arithmetic, relational, string, and Boolean operators to update variable values
    V4 Declaring a variable and initializing a variable
    V4a Giving variables meaningful names
    V4b Decide on an appropriate initial value for a variable
    V5 Define and use a variable for the purpose of holding user input.
    V6 Using variables as parameters in procedures and functions.
    V7 Using expressions to create new variables from existing ones
  • The following some known  naive conceptions are related to understanding of variables. Which of these have you encountered in your teaching? Are there others? How do check if students are harboring these naive misconceptions? How do you address them? What pedagogies/strategies do you adopt?
    The meanings of variable names affect what they do; for example a variable called “longest” will contain the longest string
    Assignment statements are basically equations; Sequences of assignments are basically groups of equations
    A variable can have multiple values at once
    a=b relocates a value from b to a; b becomes empty in the process
    a=b forms a link between the 2 variables (if one changes, the other does as well)
    Assignment works differently for different data types
    A variable is only a variable if it has a single-letter name (like x or y in Mathematics)
    Any two variables with the same name are the same variable though they have different scope (related to functions)
Contributed by Dr. Christine Liebe (CSTeach Course, Colorado School of Mines)
  • What are ways in which you (can) encourage variable naming conventions in your class? How can you help students value code readability and learn how to create descriptive variable names?
  • What are some ways you could use a resource such as GitHub to investigate professional variable names and code readability?
  • How could you use variables to teach about hardware and memory?
  • What would be an inquiry-based approach to a lesson introducing variables?
  • Name your biases: how do you conceptualize variables? What other ways could you conceptualize variables?

Additional Materials

Combining computing and maths to teach primary/elementary learners about variables​

Watch and read about Dr. Katie Rich and Carla Strickland’s work to develop a learning trajectory for variables, and designed a curriculum that integrated math and computing and focused on the learning of variables.

Assessments for checking students' understanding

Assessment #1

Coming Soon