Teacher Corner – Flow chart

  • The objective of the lesson is to teach students how to draw flowcharts to understand the process of doing a variety of activities, such as solve mathematical questions, puzzles, play games, write computer programs.
  • Begin the class by drawing a flowchart on the board. You can select a situation that students can relate to such as purchasing a birthday gift or selecting a new toy. Draw students' attention to the starting point of a flow chart. Explain that it consists of an ellipse box that has no arrows pointing to it, but only arrows moving out to other shapes.
  • Ask students to read the flow chart as you point out to the different boxes in the appropriate sequence. Ask students to identify what the different shapes of boxes convey. Summarize the points brought up by the students. Teach them the functions associated with each shape. To do the above, use the technique of guided inquiry by asking students appropriate questions but allowing them to discover the answer on their own. Use the same strategy to teach students about loop and how this is conveyed in a flowchart.
  • Ask students to do activity 3 to reinforce the understanding of flowchart. Emphasize the importance of flowchart for not only programming but also a variety of activities such problem solving, decision making, understanding rules, solving mathematical problems and puzzles.
  • In order to further reinforce their motivation to learn how to read information presented in a flowchart, ask students to do worksheet questions 4 and 7.
  • Tell the students the importance of using flow chart to solve mathematical problems. You can use worksheet questions 1 and 2 to bring out this point.
  • Asking student to frame questions is a well-known strategy to develop higher order thinking skills in young students. Worksheet question 6 provides students opportunities for the same. Since students may not be used to this kind of exercises, additional hand holding may be required.
  • You can give worksheet questions 8, 9 and 10 as homework. Doworksheet question 11 in the class. Ask students to recall their previous knowledge of step wise thinking and logical reasoning (CM levels 3 and 4 respectively). You can draw the flow chart on the blackboard as the class works out the puzzle together. If required, you can give additional choice problems for students to practise solving these with flowchart. Refer Worksheet questions in the logical reasoning chapter (CM level 4) for this.
  • Summarize the importance of flowchart and tell the students that in the next class they will learn a new programming language where the knowledge of flowchart will be applied to write computer programs.