Module 7 - Dictionaries

Quick summary description

Before the week begins

Major Topics

Materials

Due This Week:

Graded This Week

Student Difficulty

Module 7 - Staff Meeting

Lessons

Lesson 39- Dictionaries

Summary: A dictionary maps keys to values. Looking up data in a dictionary is very fast and convenient. Keys and values in a dictionary can be set on the fly, which makes them an extremely powerful tool for solving many kinds of problems.

Learning Objectives:

• Create a dictionary literal
• Describe the subtypes of a dictionary
• Iterate through a dictionary using .keys(), .values(), and .items()
• Use dictionary access to access a literal key
• Test membership within a dictionary

Activities:

• Lesson: Dictionaries
• Quiz: Dictionaries
• Programming: Dictionaries

Misconceptions:

• When students have confused a variables type and attempt to index it, they get a TypeError or KeyError that can be quite confusing.
• Students attempt to look up a key in a dictionary by iterating through it and testing each key.

Lesson 40- Dictionary Patterns

Summary: Dictionaries are flexible data structures that can be used in a number of ways. They can be records to represent complex data, as a lookup tool to simplify conversions, and as a tool for counting unknown categories of a list of data.

Learning Objectives:

• Use a dictionary to look up data
• Use a dictionary as a struct/record
• Use a dictionary to keep track of occurrences
• Use dictionary access to access a variable key

Activities:

• Lesson: Dictionary Patterns
• Quiz: Dictionary Patterns
• Programming: Dictionary Patterns

Misconceptions: None listed so far