Intro to CS with the micro:bit – free Educator Materials
Posted on March 12th, 2019 by Jaqster
Since we released Douglas and Mary Kiang’s Intro to CS with the micro:bit course almost two years ago, it has quickly become one of the most popular MakeCode resources in the world – translated into several different languages, ported to many different formats, and the basis of many different versions. I run into teachers at events all the time telling me how much they love and use the course – showing me photos of their students’ micro:bit board games, micro:pet projects and other creative projects.
So, we decided to supplement the curriculum by providing some additional Educator materials that would help new teachers learn and teach the course. We didn’t change the course at all, just added some extra materials, like:
- Educator Guides – lesson overview, preparation tasks, resources required, etc.
- Educator Quick-start videos – short videos walking through the lesson and activities
- Standards and Assessment guides – CSTA standards addressed, formative and summative assessment answer keys and rubrics
- Unit presentations – classroom aids for teaching each lesson
- Student workbooks – printer-friendly workbooks for students
New educator materials
The new materials are designed to allow educators to deliver a Computer Science curriculum to students in a structured format that introduces them to new concepts with engaging activites and projects. In addtion to the individual lesson materials, there are course guides, overviews, and assessment guides help the teacher along in presenting the course.
These materials give the teacher who’s new to the subject an already prepared lesson series which they can start to teach with right away. For educators that have wanted to introduce a Computer Science course into their classroom but have yet to develop the course material for one, use these materials and start teaching now!
Classroom presentation
Each lesson has classroom presentation slides that let you introduce students to what they will learn in that lesson and it gives an overview of the activities and lesson flow.
Educator guides
Every lesson has a complete guide to describe the lesson goals, activities, and indended outcomes.
Student workbook
The student workbook is for the student to follow. It sets the lesson goals and clearly describes the making and coding activites.
Quick start video
There’s a quick start video for each lesson sequence to help spark the student’s interest and get them thinking about the lessons they’ll be working on.
Go ahead, get them now!
These materials are all freely available for educators to download, use and modify. Get them using the following button links. You can choose the entire Educator Materials pack or go to the download page to select individual lessons and resources.
Download all of the materials
Educator Materials download page
As always, the original online course is available at: Intro to CS with the micro:bit
If you have any feedback or suggestions for us, please let us know @MSMakeCode.
Happy Making and Coding!
The MakeCode Team