Scratch Concepts & Skills

As many teachers discover, it is not uncommon for our students' to surpass us in their understanding and fluency with Scratch visual programming. While some students will dive into Scratch and thrive, others will require more support and explicit teaching - which requires teachers to have a working understanding of how Scratch works, and key computer science concepts, such as repetition, loops, IF/THEN conditional statements, and variables. I have found the following resources, especially the Scratch for Budding Computer Scientists site, very helpful for my own professional learning.

Tip: The built-in Scratch tutorials (and printable cards) are an excellent way for teachers and students to learn key Scratch visual programming skills. Just be aware that they don't always model recommended programming practices regarding the use of multiple IF/THEN conditionals inside forever blocks for arrow keys. Please refer to the lecture notes by David Clausen (below), and my blog post on"Rethinking Scratch Visual Programming".

These resources were created by Mr Dave Clausen (USA), sourced from http://www.clausentech.com/lchs/dclausen/intro_programming/lecture_notes.htm