Coding Technology In the Classroom: Meet Mr. Scratch!
Link to my lesson plan, Scratch: Push or Pull
Scratch is the world’s largest coding community for children and a coding language with a simple visual interface that allows young people to create digital stories, games, and animations. Scratch promotes computational thinking and problem solving skills; creative teaching and learning; self-expression and collaboration; and equity in computing. Scratch is always free and is available in more than 70 languages. As such, scratch can be seen as an incredibly powerful tool when considering integrating technology in the classroom. Students may create their own interactive games, animations, and stories with Scratch. They gain the ability to think creatively, reason logically, and collaborate with others—skills that are crucial for everyone in today's culture and society. Now, teachers are using Scratch in a variety of academic areas across many age ranges.
Exploring this program was fantastic; I look forward to finding avenues to activate with it in the future. What stood out most to me when creating this lesson plan was the multidimensional nature of Scratch, and how it can be used across all curricula. I believe this is a really valuable tool to motivate our students to master a variety of subjects; especially as students are becoming more and more interested in technology. With the use of Scratch, I developed a lesson plan for grade 4 science, but I can easily see applications for this across all subject areas. In the future, I want to challenge myself to find more ways to incorporate technology resources into my teaching practice; this lesson plan and activity was a great way to begin that journey. It is important to consider that this lesson would require a lot of scaffolding and prior knowledge of Scratch, and it would make a fantastic project to teach during the entire year. Students should absolutely participate more in scratch coding, especially at home!
Hi Jaiden! Overall, you have provided an extremely thorough lesson plan that offers clear and concise instruction. I appreciate the way you differentiate the lesson to ensure all students are striving towards achieving the given outcomes. The way you have structured your lesson allows students to apply both old, and new knowledge in a meaningful way. It is clear that each section of the activity has been planned out with clear intentions! I wonder, what alternative forms of assessment could be used to best suit the outcomes of this activity? In relation to my own lesson plan, I found that determining an assessment for creative tech pieces was slightly difficult as this skill could be very new to some students. I would love to hear if you have any suggestions beyond the assessment you incorporated in your plan!
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