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:
Seek and incorporate feedback from team members and users to refine a solution that meets user needs.

Descriptive Statement:
Development teams that employ user-centered design processes create solutions (e.g., programs and devices) that can have a large societal impact (e.g., an app that allows people with speech difficulties to allow a smartphone to clarify their speech). Students begin to seek diverse perspectives throughout the design process to improve their computational artifacts. Considerations of the end-user may include usability, accessibility, age-appropriate content, respectful language, user perspective, pronoun use, or color contrast. For example, if students are designing an app to teach their classmates about recycling, they could first interview or survey their classmates to learn what their classmates already know about recycling and why they do or do not recycle. After building a prototype of the app, the students could then test the app with a sample of their classmates to see if they learned anything from the app and if they had difficulty using the app (e.g., trouble reading or understanding text). After gathering interview data, students could refine the app to meet classmate needs. (CA NGSS: MS-ETS1-4)

Standard:
Distribute tasks and maintain a project timeline when collaboratively developing computational artifacts.

Descriptive Statement:
Collaboration is a common and crucial practice in programming development. Often, many individuals and groups work on the interdependent parts of a project together. Students assume pre-defined roles within their teams and manage the project workflow using structured timelines. With teacher guidance, they begin to create collective goals, expectations, and equitable workloads. For example, students could decompose the design stage of a game into planning the storyboard, flowchart, and different parts of the game mechanics. They can then distribute tasks and roles among members of the team and assign deadlines. Alternatively, students could work as a team to develop a storyboard for an animation representing a written narrative, and then program the scenes individually. (CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy W.6.3, W.7.3, W.8.3)

Standard:
Design modifications to computing devices in order to improve the ways users interact with the devices.

Descriptive Statement:
Computing devices can extend the abilities of humans, but design considerations are critical to make these devices useful. Students suggest modifications to the design of computing devices and describe how these modifications would improve usabilty. For example, students could create a design for the screen layout of a smartphone that is more usable by people with vision impairments or hand tremors. They might also design how to use the device as a scanner to convert text to speech. Alternatively, students could design modifications for a student ID card reader to increase usability by planning for scanner height, need of scanner device to be connected physically to the computer, robustness of scanner housing, and choice of use of RFID or line of sight scanners. (CA NGSS: MS-ETS1-1)

Standard:
Collaborate with many contributors when creating a computational artifact.

Descriptive Statement:
Users have diverse sets of experiences, needs, and wants. These need to be understood and integrated into the design of computational artifacts. Students use applications that enable crowdsourcing to gather services, ideas, or content from a large group of people. At this level, crowdsourcing can be done at the local level (e.g., classroom, school, or neighborhood) and/or global level (e.g., age-appropriate online communities). For example, a group of students could use electronic surveys to solicit input from their neighborhood regarding an important social or political issue. They could collaborate with a community artist to combine animations and create a digital community collage informing the public about various points of view regarding the topic. (VAPA Visual Art 8.5.2, 8.5.4)

Standard:
Explain potential security threats and security measures to mitigate threats.

Descriptive Statement:
Cybersecurity is an important field of study and it is valuable for students to understand the need for protecting sensitive data. Students identify multiple methods for protecting data and articulate the value and appropriateness for each method. Students are not expected to implement or explain the implementation of such technologies. For example, students could explain the importance of keeping passwords hidden, setting secure router administrator passwords, erasing a storage device before it is reused, and using firewalls to restrict access to private networks. Alternatively, students could explain the importance of two-factor authentication and HTTPS connections to ensure secure data transmission.

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:
Design and develop computational artifacts working in team roles using collaborative tools.

Descriptive Statement:
Collaborative tools can be as complex as a source code version control system or as simple as a collaborative word processor. Team roles in pair programming are driver and navigator but students can take on more specialized roles in larger teams. Teachers or students should choose resources that aid collaborative program development as programs grow more complex. For example, students might work as a team to develop a mobile application that addresses a problem relevant to the school or community, using appropriate tools to support actions such as: establish and manage the project timeline; design, share, and revise graphical user interface elements; implement program components, track planned, in-progress, and completed components, and design and implement user testing.

Standard:
Describe tradeoffs associated with how data elements are organized and stored.

Descriptive Statement:
People make choices about how data elements are organized and where data is stored. These choices affect cost, speed, reliability, accessibility, privacy, and integrity. Students describe implications for a given data organziation or storage choice in light of a specific problem. For example, students might consider the cost, speed, reliability, accessibility, privacy, and integrity tradeoffs between storing photo data on a mobile device versus in the cloud. Alternatively, students might compare the tradeoffs between file size and image quality of various image file formats and how choice of format may be infuenced by the device on which it is to be accessed (e.g., smartphone, computer).

Standard:
Evaluate the ways computing impacts personal, ethical, social, economic, and cultural practices.

Descriptive Statement:
Computing may improve, harm, or maintain practices. An understanding of how equity deficits, such as minimal exposure to computing, access to education, and training opportunities, are related to larger, systemic problems in society enables students to create more meaningful artifacts. Students illustrate the positive, negative, and/or neutral impacts of computing. For example, students could evaluate the accessibility of a product for a broad group of end users, such as people who lack access to broadband or who have various disabilities. Students could identify potential bias during the design process and evaluate approaches to maximize accessibility in product design. Alternatively, students could evaluate the impact of social media on cultural, economic, and social practices around the world.