Jam Sandwich Creative Lesson Year 7
Computer control is a fairly mundane topic for year 7s if it is not delivered in the correct way. In order to make it more creative and innovative I discovered and was informed about a way to explain how computers need to control things precisely and exactly and you have to issue commands in sequence.
This is where the Jam Sandwich Robot Demonstration comes into play. It is quite a simple task and is as follows.
- You need bread, jam, a knife and a plate and possibly butter or margarine.
- You then need to tell the pupils to instruct your every movement so that you can make and eat a jam sandwich
- Emphasize that it is only one command at a time
- Allow each pupil to have a go at giving you a command
- Do what each pupil says exactly
At the start the pupils issue too many commands at the same time and they also don’t issue them exactly. For example pupils say put bread on the plate but don’t tell me how to open the bread packet and how many slices to put on the plate. If they tell you something to do that is sill you can just say computer does not compute.
The pupils then get into it and give you all the instructions that you need to create the actual sandwhich and they soon get the hang of it.
The only thing you need to get right is the safety of the experiment its is important that you have all chairs cleared and that you ask the pupils to stand back before you start making it just as they all start to crowd round and it is not fair on the other pupils. This helps keep the classroom purposeful and safe.
This is a great task to get them thinking logically and to understand the importance of precise and exact commands in computer control.
Lesson Plan >> http://bit.ly/itXVCx
Power Point >> http://bit.ly/lYfda3