Homework/tests/grading policy?

CS Principles Resources, Tools, Differentiation
1

There have been a couple threads on this, but I’d like to revive this topic and ask a couple specific questions. If you have input on any of these questions, I’d love to hear your responses!

  1. What was the grade breakdown in your class? Glancing over the lessons, it’s clear that performance tasks will be a huge part of my grading system, but what else?

Right now I’m thinking…
Practice performance tasks
AP-style multiple choice question quizzes
Daily classwork assignments
Homework assignments (non-daily)
Participation

  1. How did you grade the performance tasks? How did you have students submit them? Is there a CollegeBoard rubric we can base grading off of?

  2. Did you assign homework? If so, was it daily? Weekly? As you thought of a worthwhile assignment? What was the nature of most of the assignments?

  3. How often did you use/grade the questions built into the modules at Code.org? If so, how did you grade them? (I’m a little pressed for time, so I’m not sure how often I will be able to use them, but like the idea of having them as a classwork grade.)

  4. Did you give tests or quizzes? If so, how often, and where did you get your questions?

  5. Does anyone know off the top of their head many of the modules have AP-style questions built into them? I’d like to use those as assessment (quiz?) grades at every opportunity possible (my students have very little experience with AP-style questions).

  6. Do you think it’s worth having another class website through something like Google Classroom, or did you do all of your classroom work through the Code.org site?

Thank you so much!
Emily

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Hi Emily!

Here are some answers from what I did last year when I piloted. I think there is a great deal of variation.

  1. You can’t give any feedback (therefore can’t grade) before they turn in the PTs. I am hoping my students will revist and turn them in this year so I didn’t grade them. I think we can grade them after they turned in and I plan to do so. I’m not sure where the CB is on the Rubrics. I heard they were still being revised. @brook any update?

  2. I did assign a small amount of homework every night. Often readings from the extensions, or watching a video, or often one of the open response questions on code studio for the lesson. I tried to keep it at less then 20 minutes.

  3. I rarely graded them. If I assinged them for homework I would grade them, but very quickly, mostly for completion. I did find that bringing up exemplars of how I wanted them to write was good for writing practice.

  4. Most of the test questions were not ready when I taught. I plan to give more tests this year then I did last year.

  5. Seems like there are a questions for every unit now!

Hope this helps!

1 Like
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Thanks Caroline!

  1. By grading the PTs, I mean the practice PTs, not the actual PTs. I plan for the practice PTs to be the major percentage of my students grades. I WILL grade the actual PTs after they’ve submitted them as a “final project” grade, but of course I can’t give feedback beforehand.

  2. I love the idea of bringing up exemplars of good computer science writing!

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Thanks for this thread, @ebeastlake and @cmeeks! Great idea to use examplars of good writing. From initial assignments I’ve given, several of my students will benefit from this too.