Tools to evaluate technology skills using formative and summative assessment. Includes peer reviews, self-reflections, rubrics, marking sheets, and checklists.
Teachers, are you assessing your students’ Scratch coding projects? How do you know that they understand the code that they have written? Here’s a quick tip to have your students demonstrate their learning: ask them to write brief comment notes in Scratch. In this way, they will confirm that they recognize the function of the […]
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When teaching a game development curriculum unit use a Game Development Rubric. A rubric is an efficient way to consistently grade student work. Especially when teaching multiple classes. Moreover, this tool makes it easy to rate students’ performance from beginner to expert. What is a Rubric? To clarify, a rubric is an assessment tool that
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When teaching coding to kids, you might want them to submit work in ScratchJr for assessment. If you have ScratchJr installed on a Windows device or Chromebook, this can be problematic. This is because the files are stored locally in an internal database. In essence, the files are “stuck” on the local device. Typically, when
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Here’s a key game coding strategy for beginner programmers: pair up to test often, not just at the end of your project. Whenever your students are designing a game with Scratch or other programming language, they should have a friend test their code at different stages throughout the design process. Often when teaching coding, a
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You can improve logical thinking with programming activities that engage learners. Being logical is a trademark of programmers and is one of the most valued soft skills they can possess. Unlike hard skills which are technical abilities such as how to write code, soft skills are traits that describe a person’s work habits. They are
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A great way to end a programming unit or coding workshop is to have students give a coding presentation. This provides a valuable opportunity for students to reflect upon the learning experience. Moreover, it develops strong communication skills, which are highly valued in the workplace. What is a Coding Presentation? Programmers often need to give
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I’ve been having lots of fun learning to code with Scratch over the past month. It inspired me to write blogs about the benefits of teaching programming skills and computer science standards. But it also prompted me to ponder about teaching practices associated with coding. Many of the resources I researched suggested that students write
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