Search the California Content Standards

Standard:
Decompose problems and subproblems into parts to facilitate the design, implementation, and review of programs.

Descriptive Statement:
Decomposition facilitates program development by allowing students to focus on one piece at a time (e.g., getting input from the user, processing the data, and displaying the result to the user). Decomposition also enables different students to work on different parts at the same time. Students break down (decompose) problems into subproblems, which can be further broken down to smaller parts. Students could create an arcade game, with a title screen, a game screen, and a win/lose screen with an option to play the game again. To do this, students need to identify subproblems that accompany each screen (e.g., selecting an avatar goes in the title screen, events for controlling character action and scoring goes in the game screen, and displaying final and high score and asking whether to play again goes in the win/lose screen). Alternatively, students could decompose the problem of calculating and displaying class grades. Subproblems might include: accept input for students grades on various assignments, check for invalid grade entries, calculate per assignment averages, calculate per student averages, and display histograms of student scores for each assignment. (CA CCSS for Mathematics 6.RP.3c, 6.SP.4, 6.SP.5)

Standard:
Create procedures with parameters to organize code and make it easier to reuse.

Descriptive Statement:
Procedures support modularity in developing programs. Parameters can provide greater flexibility, reusability, and efficient use of resources. Students create procedures and/or functions that are used multiple times within a program to repeat groups of instructions. They generalize the procedures and/or functions by defining parameters that generate different outputs for a wide range of inputs. For example, students could create a procedure to draw a circle which involves many instructions, but all of them can be invoked with one instruction, such as “drawCircle.” By adding a radius parameter, students can easily draw circles of different sizes. (CA CCSS for Mathematics 7.G.4) Alternatively, calculating the area of a regular polygon requires multiple steps. Students could write a function that accepts the number and length of the sides as parameters and then calculates the area of the polygon. This function can then be re-used inside any program to calculate the area of a regular polygon. (CA CCSS for Mathematics 6.G.1)

Standard:
Systematically apply troubleshooting strategies to identify and resolve hardware and software problems in computing systems.

Descriptive Statement:
When problems occur within computing systems, it is important to take a structured, step-by-step approach to effectively solve the problem and ensure that potential solutions are not overlooked. Examples of troubleshooting strategies include following a troubleshooting flow diagram, making changes to software to see if hardware will work, checking connections and settings, and swapping in working components. Since a computing device may interact with interconnected devices within a system, problems may not be due to the specific computing device itself but to devices connected to it. For example, students could work through a checklist of solutions for connectivity problems in a lab of computers connected wirelessly or through physical cables. They could also search for technical information online and engage in technical reading to create troubleshooting documents that they then apply. (CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy RST.6-8.10) Alternatively, students could explore and utilize operating system tools to reset a computer's default language to English. Additionally, students could swap out an externally-controlled sensor giving fluctuating readings with a new sensor to check whether there is a hardware problem.

Standard:
Test and analyze the effects of changing variables while using computational models.

Descriptive Statement:
Variables within a computational model may be changed, in order to alter a computer simulation or to more accurately represent how various data is related. Students interact with a given model, make changes to identified model variables, and observe and reflect upon the results. For example, students could test a program that makes a robot move on a track by making changes to variables (e.g., height and angle of track, size and mass of the robot) and discussing how these changes affect how far the robot travels. (CA NGSS: MS-PS2-2) Alternatively, students could test a game simulation and change variables (e.g., skill of simulated players, nature of opening moves) and analyze how these changes affect who wins the game. (CA NGSS: MS-ETS1-3) Additionally, students could modify a model for predicting the likely color of the next pick from a bag of colored candy and analyze the effects of changing variables representing the common color ratios in a typical bag of candy. (CA CCSS for Mathematics 7.SP.7, 8.SP.4)

Standard:
Justify the selection of specific control structures by identifying tradeoffs associated with implementation, readability, and performance.

Descriptive Statement:
The selection of control structures in a given programming language impacts readability and performance. Readability refers to how clear the program is to other programmers and can be improved through documentation. Control structures at this level may include, for example, conditional statements, loops, event handlers, and recursion. Students justify control structure selection and tradeoffs in the process of creating their own computational artifacts. The discussion of performance is limited to a theoretical understanding of execution time and storage requirements; a quantitative analysis is not expected. For example, students could compare the readability and program performance of iterative and recursive implementations of procedures that calculate the Fibonacci sequence. Alternatively, students could compare the readability and performance tradeoffs of multiple if statements versus a nested if statement.

Standard:
Iteratively design and develop computational artifacts for practical intent, personal expression, or to address a societal issue by using events to initiate instructions.

Descriptive Statement:
In this context, relevant computational artifacts can include programs, mobile apps, or web apps. Events can be user-initiated, such as a button press, or system-initiated, such as a timer firing. For example, students might create a tool for drawing on a canvas by first implementing a button to set the color of the pen. Alternatively, students might create a game where many events control instructions executed (e.g., when a score climbs above a threshold, a congratulatory sound is played; when a user clicks on an object, the object is loaded into a basket; when a user clicks on an arrow key, the player object is moved around the screen).

Standard:
Decompose problems into smaller subproblems through systematic analysis, using constructs such as procedures, modules, and/or classes.

Descriptive Statement:
Decomposition enables solutions to complex problems to be designed and implemented as more manageable subproblems. Students decompose a given problem into subproblems that can be solved using existing functionalities, or new functionalities that they design and implement. For example, students could design a program for supporting soccer coaches in analyzing their teams' statistics. They decompose the problem in terms of managing input, analysis, and output. They decompose the data organization by designing what data will be stored per player, per game, and per team. Team players may be stored as a collection. Data per team player may include: number of shots, misses, saves, assists, penalty kicks, blocks, and corner kicks. Students design methods for supporting various statistical analyses and display options. Students design output formats for individual players or coaches.

Standard:
Create computational artifacts using modular design.

Descriptive Statement:
Computational artifacts are created by combining and modifying existing computational artifacts and/or by developing new artifacts. To reduce complexity, large programs can be designed as systems of interacting modules, each with a specific role, coordinating for a common overall purpose. Students should create computational artifacts with interacting procedures, modules, and/or libraries. For example, students could incorporate a physics library into an animation of bouncing balls. Alternatively, students could integrate open-source JavaScript libraries to expand the functionality of a web application. Additionally, students could create their own game to teach Spanish vocabulary words using their own modular design (e.g., including methods to: control scoring, manage wordlists, manage access to different game levels, take input from the user, etc.).

Standard:
Develop guidelines that convey systematic troubleshooting strategies that others can use to identify and fix errors.

Descriptive Statement:
Troubleshooting complex problems involves the use of multiple sources when researching, evaluating, and implementing potential solutions. Troubleshooting also relies on experience, such as when people recognize that a problem is similar to one they have seen before and adapt solutions that have worked in the past. For example, students could create a list of troubleshooting strategies to debug network connectivity problems such as checking hardware and software status and settings, rebooting devices, and checking security settings. Alternatively, students could create troubleshooting guidelines for help desk employees based on commonly observed problems (e.g., problems connecting a new device to the computer, problems printing from a computer to a network printer).

Standard:
Refine computational models to better represent the relationships among different elements of data collected from a phenomenon or process.

Descriptive Statement:
Computational models are used to make predictions about processes or phenomena based on selected data and features. They allow people to investigate the relationships among different variables to understand a system. Predictions are tested to validate models. Students evaluate these models against real-world observations. For example, students could use a population model that allows them to speculate about interactions among different species, evaluate the model based on data gathered from nature, and then refine the model to reflect more complex and realistic interactions.