Assessments - Elementary

My students are loving the new course pilots. However my administration is asking me for more assessments and data to show that students are mastering the essential computer science skills. Is CODE.ORG planning to add assessments? Data to keep track of rather just achievement to the next level?

Is anyone using rubrics to grade the students… for example LOVE the pong game they are making in course D and see there is potential to use the last level of stage 1 as an assessment. Before I make my own assessment I was hoping to see if something is out there already or plans of it to be made by CODE.ORG to go with the course.

Thanks in advance, Casey :slight_smile:

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This is such a great question!

One of the challenges we have at Code.org is navigating the need for good assessments in computer science. At the CS Fundamentals level, it’s very difficult to claim “learning” given only the tools inside the puzzles. Because of that, we hesitate to slap assessments into the stages and encourage their use for grading.

We’re working on a system that will allow teachers to see where students’ strengths and weaknesses are, but until then, we will be adding some puzzles that compare successes at different points in a stage.

While we’re working on all of this, I’d love to hear from teachers about the things that you use as coding assessments, and what you would like to see in our courses.

~Kiki

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One of the first things teachers are encouraged to do with the students is use a Code/Design Journal that students can reflect in at the end of a lesson or throughout a project. The journal can be designed with open ended questions such as “What did you find challenging about this lesson/project?” and “How did you approach that challenge?”. The questions can also be more specific to the lesson or project, “How did using the repeat block help you with creating an algorithm?”.

The teachers have used rubrics and task cards with activities and projects when coding the Robot Mouse and Dash & Dot to keep track of student progress and checking for understanding. As we move into the project based learning with Scratch and Scratch Jr those rubrics and checklists will be used more for a grading scale. It can be difficult to set expectations but still not limiting student creativity and ability to find unique solutions or programs.

More specific to the CS Fundamentals courses, some of the teachers have taken the assessment question within the stage and adapted them to a paper activity. It is also important to look at how the worksheets used in the unplugged activities are being scored and used as a student artifact.

Teachers can create activities within their own Code Studio account using Play Lab or Draw Something and then share the URL with students to complete specific tasks. These tasks may include debugging a program, finishing an algorithm/program, rewriting the program in pseudocode or reverse engineering.

Here is a link to this post with links to assessment examples: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WfBxOc64P7Gm3YhZ9Hv7Ftnfiq8FvpM1EFxnLqObyoo/edit?usp=sharing

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@bergeron Thank you so much for sharing this. I love the idea of using a Code/Design journal and rubrics for assessment. A points based grade seems too restrictive for this type of work. One thing that teachers might consider for pre-reading students is the web tool www.letsrecap.com. Students explain their thinking on video and the their answers can be easily reviewed and shared. If a teacher asked similar questions through out the year they could see some pretty incredible growth on any one topic, including Computer Science…

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Scratch has a journal/workbook to reflect for the students too… http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/guide/files/CreativeComputing20140820_LearnerWorkbook.pdf

Would you be able to have something like this included in the course? Maybe a part to reflect along the way? Something built into the course instead of a printed journal? Maybe you can connect this reflection with the new multiple choice questions found in each of the stages. Just a thought…

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Thanks for the thought!

We do have a resource available in our system, but using it violates COPPA to use it below the age of 13. We’ve chosen to make this portion an offline activity to protect the privacy of elementary schoolers.

One problem I have had with course 1-4 (I’ve taught them all) is that some of my students want to skip puzzles they don’t like. When sorting the progress pages by “progress” these students show that they are more advanced than other students because the report only considers the last puzzle or level completed in each stage. I would love to have the ability to lock/unlock puzzles dependent on what previous puzzles are completed. I would also love to see an optional progress report that shows a “score” instead of just green circles. If I were making such a report, I would assign 1 point or 100% to each puzzle completed in the most efficient manner. I would assign .75 points or 75% to each puzzle completed but not in the most efficient manner. I would assign .5 or 50% for each puzzle attempted but not completed. Finally, I would assign 0 or 0% for each puzzle skipped by the student. Such a report (or just a column in the regular report) would allow me to quickly and easily identify students who were lagging in their progress, who were purposely skipping puzzles, and who were completing puzzles but not really mastering the concept, i.e. not in the most efficient manner.

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It would be interesting to see how many times the student attempted to solcve the puzzle before filnnaly solving it. Keeping track of if he used the step option to help him solve the puzzle - maybe the first 3 attempts could be recorded-this way the teacher could look at the student’s 'attack; strategy and be able to help the next class period (since you can’t watch all of them all of the time and see how they attack a new / challenging puzzle)
I give tips to them every time we meet, and it would be interesting to see how many of them are trying the tips on their first few attempts (use the steps option, break it into smaller chunks, get part to work and then build on it, etc)

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We’re actually working on a new teacher UX that will take all of this into consideration! Stay tuned :slight_smile:

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Woo hoo! So Exited for all the changes.

What way is the best to evaluate assessment worksheets? Anyone working about this ? Rubric , scale or something else ?

I only allow them to finish a level at a time. I do not let them get ahead of the other students. Each day I give them a puzzles to work on and then they can do hour of code. work on other homework or read. It makes it really easy for me to keep track of them.

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I would love to be able to do that. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work the the 26 classes I get each week. I just need a way to see a number or percentage of how much the individual student has actually finished. The visual indicators are great for a quick glance, but when I have nearly 700 students to grade, I hate having to look at the visual indicators for each child. It would be much better to just be able to run a report.

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Do you have the answers to these assessments? I am finding That I am not sure which goes with which.
Thanks

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We do have answer keys, located underneath the Unplugged page:
https://code.org/curriculum/unplugged

If there are any keys that you’re missing, feel free to request them here.

Has anyone found or created pre-assessments that would allow us to differentiate kids’ initial access to the lessons on code.org? Thanks! Deirdre

Waiting for this change!

Code.org creates the assessments and builds it into the lessons. Would it be possible for Code.org to create a question bank based on the CS standard and/or the Unit/lesson. The question bank could have options for multiple choice, true/false, vocabulary, fill in the blank, matching, open ended, etc. Our district requires each teacher to have a pre- and post-test assessments in Imagine’s Galileo. Unfortunately, Galileo does NOT have any CS items in its bank. Some students do better on performance style vs. text based questions. So, maybe the question bank could include some interactive performance style questions as well.