Unit 1 Lab: Variables

Lesson Objectives

At GA, we believe hands-on activities are the best way to learn.

Labs are opportunities for you to learn by doing, in the classroom and with the support of your peers and your instructional team.

Tips for a great lab experience:

1 MINUTE

Teaching Tips:

Explain what labs are and how best to participate in one, including the Talking Points below.

Talking Points:

Failure is an option: Encourage learners to try to solve the lab on their own, even if their code doesn’t work at first. It’s OK to make mistakes, we learn by doing.
Ask three before you ask me: We are a community of learners here. If you’re stuck, ask a peer for help. Then another, then another. After you’ve asked three peers, if you’re still stuck, raise your hand and I’ll come help.
Reflect and be ready to debrief: Remember the goal is not just to get the lab done, write “correct” code, and solve the puzzle correctly. This is a learning experience. You should be thinking not about whether you get the “right” answer — in fact, there is often more than one way to complete these labs — but instead thinking about what you’re learning on the way to finding an answer.

A "You Do" is an exercise for you to try on your own!

In today’s lab, you will:

Create the bones of a movie-rating app that we’ll be adding on to at the end of each unit.
Print complex variables.

Open the file Unit Lab 1 Directions to see the lab and its instructions. Follow the instructions there.

Try your best! Raise your hand if you really need help.

25 MINUTES

Teaching Tips:

Make sure you change the link or point out which PDF to look at!
The lab has instructions and an explanation in it for students to read. Make sure they're all opening the lab instructions OK and that they're all working locally and not in repl.it. The Talking Points below are from the lab overview.
Stay on this slide until everyone's done or time's up!

Talking Points:

Throughout the course, there is a lab at the end of each unit. Each lab builds upon the last.
At the end Unit 5's lab, you'll have an app that asks the user to enter a movie title. Your app will then search for that movie on Rotten Tomatoes and print the search results and the Rotten Tomatoes rating.
For example, if a user searches in your app for "Blade," your app can get a list of results: "Blade," "Blade II," "Blade Runner," "Blade Runner 2049," and "Blade of the Immortal (Mugen no jûnin)." Your app can also tell the user that Blade has a 54% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
It's going to be awesome!
Right now, let's set up some variables and print out their values.

How did it go?

Let's go over it.

Make sure your code works — the Unit 2 lab builds off this one!

What'd we do?

Explored the concept of variables and differentiated between variable types.
Created and reassigned numerical variables using common naming guidelines and numerical operators.
Reassigned variables using variables and shorthand assignment operators.
Created string variables, concatenate strings, and print complex structures.

Questions?

5 MINUTES

Teaching Tips:

Briefly review the high-level learning objectives for Unit 1.
As you read each bullet aloud, ask students to give you a "fist to five." See the Talking Points below.
Observe student votes for each item, and make a mental note to follow up with individuals who are not feeling confident or find time to reteach topics with which the majority of the class is uncomfortable.
Take time to go over questions (but remember the parking lot).

Talking Points:

Wow, we've covered a lot, and we're just getting started! Let's take a minute to review what we've learned so far.
I'm going to read through the learning objectives for Unit 1. As I do so, I want you to tell me how confident you feel that you've mastered each one on a scale of 0 to 5. Hold up your fist to indicate 0: You don't feel confident at all that you mastered this objective. Hold up all five fingers to indicate 5: You feel super confident. You're an expert!