Unit 7: Iteration

CL.L2-05 Implement problem solutions using a programming language, including: looping behavior, conditional statements logic, expressions, variables, and functions.
CL.L3A-03 Explain how sequence, selection, iteration, and recursion are building blocks of algorithms.

Guiding Ideas

All the following lessons are approximately 45-60 minutes, depending on how much time you give students to explore the coding activities.

Lesson A: Introduction to iteration

Lesson B: Coding with iteration

Lesson C: Debugging with iteration

Lesson D: Get creative with iteration

Please review the Coding With Minecraft Educator Preparation Video and Educator Guide attached for additional details.

Student Activities

In this unit, students will explore the concept of iteration, or ways to make things repeat. Programmers might repeat actions in a program to have a certain effect, or might use repetition to accomplish the same task in a smaller number of steps. Students will get familiar with the concepts through two unplugged activities. They get hands-on experience with guided coding activities to get to know their agent, and teach it to dance and till soil for farming in Minecraft. In the independent projects, students will code their agent to dig a staircase to find diamonds under the surface.

Performance Expectations

By the end of this unit, students will be able to:

Explain the use of iteration in coding and synonymous terms used by programmers.
List examples of iteration in daily life.
Describe the different types of loops in MakeCode.
Use different types of loops to debug and code more efficiently.
Design an original creative project to automate a solution with iteration.

Please review the Assessment Guide for additional details.