M/J Grade 8 Digital Discoveries  (#0200023) 

Clarification 2: Instruction includes the creation of a digital product that provides value to society individually or collaboratively.

Example: Discuss the autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner’s ability to map and analyze structures to avoid obstacles.

Example: Analyze the advantages of implementing drones to spray crops or detect predators in an agricultural environment.

Clarification 2: Instruction is limited to the physical effects of direct digital device usage.

Clarification 1: Within this benchmark, the term function and procedure can be used interchangeably.

Clarification 2: Instruction includes consideration of the intake and output of information.

Clarification 1: Instruction focuses on creating algorithms that are efficient, reliable and valid.

Clarification 2: Context for problems include video games, robot obstacle course and making dinner.

Clarification 2: Within this benchmark, instruction includes the use of inequalities.

Clarification 3: Instruction includes flowcharting the initial sequence of steps.

Clarification 1: Within this benchmark, the expectation is that students will not create algorithms, a list will be provided by the teacher.

Clarification 2: Criteria may include time, resources and accessibility.

Clarification 1: Instruction includes gathering, viewing, organizing and analyzing data.

Clarification 2: Data-collection tools include probes, handheld devices, geographic mapping systems and output from multiple runs of a computer program.

Clarification 1: Instruction includes consideration of models.

Clarification 2: Within this benchmark, instruction includes consideration of safety, cost, time, location and precision.

• Cultivate a community of learners.
• Foster perseverance in students by choosing challenging tasks.
• Recognize students’ effort when solving challenging problems.
• Emphasize project-based learning.
• Establish a culture in which students ask questions of the teacher and their peers, and errors as a learning opportunity.
• Develop students’ ability to justify methods and compare their responses to the responses of their peers.

Teachers who encourage students to demonstrate understanding by decomposing a problem:

• Develop students’ ability to analyze and problem-solve.

• Help students break complex tasks into subtasks.

• Show students that the solution to individual parts allows them to solve complex problems more effectively.

Teachers who encourage students to complete tasks with digital fluency:

• Provide students with opportunities to increase critical thinking skills.
• Provide students with opportunities to use various technology hardware and software, so that technology is an integral part of the learning experience. Develop students’ ability to construct relationships between their current understanding and more sophisticated ways of thinking.

Teachers who encourage students to express solutions as computational steps:

• Provide opportunities for students to develop sequentially based understandings of problems. 
• Guide students to align tasks to a step-by-step solution.
• Select sequence and present student work to advance and deepen understanding of correct and increasingly efficient methods.
• Prompt students to continually ask, “Does this solution make sense? How do you know?”
• Reinforce that students check their work as they progress within and after a task.
• Strengthen students’ ability to verify solutions through justification.

Teachers who encourage students to create an algorithm to achieve a given goal:

• Support students to develop generalizations based on the similarities found among problems.
• Have students estimate or predict solutions before solving.
• Help students recognize the patterns in the world around them and connect these patterns to other concepts.

Teachers who encourage students to differentiate between useable data and miscellaneous information:

• Support students as they validate conclusions by comparing them to the given situation.
• Create opportunities for students to discuss their thinking with peers.

Teachers who encourage students to solve real-life problems in science and engineering using computational thinking:

• Create learning opportunities that require logical reasoning and problem-solving skills.
• Provide opportunities for students to create plans and procedures to solve problems.
• Provide opportunities for students to create programs or models, both concrete and abstract, and perform investigations.
• Challenge students to question the accuracy of their programs, models and methods.

• Cultivate a community of growth mindset learners. 
• Foster perseverance in students by choosing tasks that are challenging. 
• Develop students’ ability to analyze and problem solve. 
• Recognize students’ effort when solving challenging problems.

• Help students make connections between concepts and representations.
• Provide opportunities for students to use manipulatives when investigating concepts.
• Guide students from concrete to pictorial to abstract representations as understanding progresses.
• Show students that various representations can have different purposes and can be useful in different situations. 

• Provide students with the flexibility to solve problems by selecting a procedure that allows them to solve efficiently and accurately.
• Offer multiple opportunities for students to practice efficient and generalizable methods.
• Provide opportunities for students to reflect on the method they used and determine if a more efficient method could have been used. 

• Establish a culture in which students ask questions of the teacher and their peers, and error is an opportunity for learning.
• Create opportunities for students to discuss their thinking with peers.
• Select, sequence and present student work to advance and deepen understanding of correct and increasingly efficient methods.
• Develop students’ ability to justify methods and compare their responses to the responses of their peers. 

• Help students recognize the patterns in the world around them and connect these patterns to mathematical concepts.
• Support students to develop generalizations based on the similarities found among problems.
• Provide opportunities for students to create plans and procedures to solve problems.
• Develop students’ ability to construct relationships between their current understanding and more sophisticated ways of thinking.

• Have students estimate or predict solutions prior to solving.
• Prompt students to continually ask, “Does this solution make sense? How do you know?”
• Reinforce that students check their work as they progress within and after a task.
• Strengthen students’ ability to verify solutions through justifications. 

• Provide opportunities for students to create models, both concrete and abstract, and perform investigations.
• Challenge students to question the accuracy of their models and methods.
• Support students as they validate conclusions by comparing them to the given situation.
• Indicate how various concepts can be applied to other disciplines.

2-3 Students include relevant textual evidence in their written and oral communication. Students should name the text when they refer to it. In 3rd grade, students should use a combination of direct and indirect citations.

4-5 Students continue with previous skills and reference comments made by speakers and peers. Students cite texts that they’ve directly quoted, paraphrased, or used for information. When writing, students will use the form of citation dictated by the instructor or the style guide referenced by the instructor. 

6-8 Students continue with previous skills and use a style guide to create a proper citation.

9-12 Students continue with previous skills and should be aware of existing style guides and the ways in which they differ.

In grades 1-2, students build upon these skills by justifying what they are thinking. For example: “I think ________ because _______.” The collaborative conversations are becoming academic conversations.

In grades 3-12, students engage in academic conversations discussing claims and justifying their reasoning, refining and applying skills. Students build on ideas, propel the conversation, and support claims and counterclaims with evidence.