GCSE
Lesson 10 Merge sort
During this lesson, learners will explore the final sorting algorithm in this unit, merge sort. They will start by considering how they might go about combining two groups of sorted items into one sorted group before being taken through the steps of one merge of a merge sort. This leads on to an activity that focuses solely on merging a pair of lists together so they can be comfortable with this process before moving onto the full algorithm. The slides will provide a further step-by-step visualisation of an entire merge sort, first splitting the lists until each item is in a list of its own and then merging pairs of lists in order. It is essential for learners to identify which pairs of lists should be merged together and which items in a pair of lists need to be compared at each stage in the algorithm. Learners will get to practice executing a full merge sort on the samples of data provided. Both worksheets contain a partially worked example to support them with merging lists together. They will also be given an overview of how well merge sort performs when compared to bubble sort.
Learning objectives
- Merge two ordered lists of items into a new ordered list
- Describe how merge sort is used for ordering a list of items
- Perform a merge sort to order a list containing sample data
Package contents
- Lesson plans
- Learning graphs
- Unit overviews
- Activities
Not registered yet?
Create an account and get access to over 500 hours of free teaching resources.
GCSE revision
A comprehensive range of content and helpful practice questions are also available for this topic.