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Everything you need to run a class

A start-to-finish walk-through, the real curriculum for every course, day by day, and every document, template and sheet you will use. The walk-through is a draft that the Education team keeps improving.

Run a class, start to finish

01

Before class

Draft walk-through, written from the class materials. Needs review by the Education team.

Start preparing a few days ahead. The goal is that on class day nothing surprises you.

  1. Read the lesson. Open your course in the curriculum overview below and read that day (objectives, setup, activities, slides). Try every activity yourself.
  2. Know your team. Confirm who is the teacher and who is the TA, and who will do what.
  3. Get the class list ready in the Student attendance sheet, so you can mark attendance quickly.
  4. Prepare the slides from the curriculum folder: Scratch: new slides or Python: slides.
  5. Scratch classes only: send the Creating a Scratch coding account in advance early so every student arrives with a Scratch account.
  6. The day before: send the A day before class.
  7. Test your setup: open the weekly Zoom link for weekly classes, check your microphone and camera, and practice sharing your screen.

Checklist: lesson read, code tested, slides ready, attendance sheet ready, emails sent, Zoom tested.

02

During class

Draft walk-through. Needs review by the Education team.

  1. 20 minutes before: send the 20 minutes before class and open the Zoom link for weekly classes early so students who arrive first are welcomed.
  2. Welcome and attendance. Greet students by name, and record who is present in the Student attendance sheet.
  3. Follow the day plan. Teach the objectives and activities listed for that day in the curriculum overview below.
  4. Keep everyone involved. Ask questions, use pairs or small groups, and invite students to share their screens.
  5. If a student's camera is off, or they are having trouble, check in kindly. Make a note and use the Camera issue after class if it continues.
  6. Final five minutes. Summarize the lesson, set the homework, share the quiz page, and remind students about the feedback form on each lesson.

Remember: the same plan every time is what makes classes consistent. If something doesn't work, note it. Don't change it silently.

03

After class

Draft walk-through. Needs review by the Education team.

  1. Send the After class ends with thanks, the recap and the homework, and the link to the lesson on the Learning Hub.
  2. Finish attendance in the Student attendance sheet.
  3. Contact families of absent students with the Absent students' parents. A kind message early is the best way to prevent dropouts.
  4. Log your service hours in the Teacher service hour attendance sheet: Teacher, 2 hours per class. TA, 1 hour per class.
  5. Share what you learned. Use the feedback form on the lesson page to tell the Education team what worked and what to change.
  6. Debrief with your co-teacher: one thing that went well, one thing to improve.
04

The last day

Draft walk-through. Needs review by the Education team.

  1. Celebrate the projects. Give each student a moment to show what they built.
  2. Review the journey. Look back at the session titles and what students can now do.
  3. Send the The last day to students and families, with the next steps (the Learning Hub for independent study, and the next workshop).
  4. Collect feedback. Ask students and the TA to fill in the lesson feedback forms.
  5. Close out the records. Finish the Student attendance sheet and add your final hours to the Teacher service hour attendance sheet.
  6. Hand over notes to the Education team: attendance patterns, what students found hard, and suggested changes.

Curriculum overview

The four core courses are Scratch, Python, Machine Learning and AI App Development (in development). The real curriculum for each course, day by day, taken from the curriculum guides. The public Learning Hub Scratch lessons follow these five days; the public Python and Machine Learning lessons are separate, simpler drafts and do not.

Scratch

Source: Scratch curriculum guide (Google Doc, exported PDF)

Course materials: Scratch curriculum · Scratch: new slides · Scratch: videos

  • The main project of each day is the highlighted lesson. If your class finishes the main project early, start the alternative project(s), marked with an asterisk (*) in the guide.
  • Teaching Scratch through Google Drive videos and the Scratch website: access the videos through the Google Drive video folder; open the Scratch website; create a new account or log in to an existing one (students may need help with this; try to have students write down their username and password so they do not forget); teach the class using the videos in Drive and the starter project links.
  • If a lesson has several starter project links, send the students all the links and have them choose the starter project they want to work from. This gives students different character and background options.
Day 1 Characterization

Activities

Day 2 Art

Activities

Day 3 Sports

Activities

Day 4 Game Design (Quest Game)

Activities

Day 5 Game Design (Cave Surfing Game)

Activities

Important information: links

Python

Source: 5-Day Python Curriculum Guide (Google Doc, exported PDF)

Course materials: Python curriculum · Python: slides · Python: video

  • The guide lists no slides, files or videos per day; the course-level Google Doc, Slides and video above are the existing links.
  • Extra practice (end of the guide): Programiz Examples, and more Programiz topics (dictionaries, tuples, sets, file handling). "If you still need more things to do, continue Codingbat or going further in w3schools." (The guide gives no links for Codingbat or w3schools.)
Day 1 Python Basics & Print

Objectives

  • Get familiar with Programiz Online Compiler and run Python
  • Learn print, comments, variables, and basic data types

Setup

Activities

  • Print “Hello, World!”
  • Declare variables & practice data types (int, float, str, bool)
  • Try simple operations & comments

Resources

Day 2 Strings & Casting

Objectives

  • Work with strings (indexing, slicing, methods)
  • Use input() with print()
  • Practice type conversion (casting)

Activities

  • String indexing & slicing (s[0], s[-1], s[1:4])
  • input() to get user input
  • Use int(), str(), float() to convert between data types
  • Try string methods (upper(), lower(), replace())

Resources

Day 3 Operators, Conditionals (If-Else), Booleans

Objectives

  • Learn arithmetic, comparison, and logical operators
  • Understand Boolean values
  • Write if, else, elif statements

Activities

  • Practice arithmetic & comparison operators: +, -, *, /, %, ==, !=
  • Practice logical operators: and, or, not
  • Create simple programs using conditionals (e.g., score → grade checker, even/odd checker)

Resources

Day 4 Loops (While & For)

Objectives

  • Understand while and for loops
  • Combine loops with conditions

Activities

  • Practice while loop (counting, password guessing)
  • Practice for loop (iterate over list or string)
  • Use range() in loops

Resources

Day 5 Lists & Functions

Objectives

  • Create and use lists
  • Define and call functions

Activities

  • Create a list, access, modify, and delete elements
  • Use list methods: .append(), .remove(), .sort()
  • Define a function: def greet(name):
  • Combine lists + functions (e.g., write a function to calculate the average score in a list)

Resources

Extra practice

Machine Learning

Source: VOC Machine Learning Curriculum (Google Doc, exported PDF; no text layer, read page by page as images) · Age level: 4th grade – 7th grade

Course materials: Machine Learning curriculum

  • "Please watch the videos before teaching the lesson."

Watch before teaching

Day 1 Intro to Machine Learning + Teachable Machine Projects (Cat & Dog, Audio [if time])

Slides

Files

Resources

Day 2 Lemonade Project (Supervised Learning)

Slides

Resources

Day 3 Boston Housing Project (Supervised Learning)

Slides

Resources

Day 4 Hidden Layers (Deep Learning)

Slides

Resources

Day 5 Iris Flower Classification (Supervised Learning)

Slides

Resources

Extra videos

AI App DevelopmentIn development

Source: No curriculum guide yet

  • This course is in development. There is no curriculum guide for it yet, so there is no day-by-day plan here.
  • Draft lessons for it are already public in the Learning Hub, and they may change.

Attendance and service hours

Log your hours after every class.

Teacher2 hours per class
TA (teaching assistant)1 hour per class