My approach to teaching Scratch game design is informed by industry game development practices, and it is constantly evolving over time in response to students' feedback, skill levels, and my own ongoing professional learning about Scratch visual programming.
The framework below is a guide only, and it is easily adaptable for a range of students' ages and skill levels.
You can download an adapt a copy of my current game design template here.
Students will need time (often several weeks) to build and code their prototype Scratch games. Encouraging peer tutoring, the use of YouTube tutorials, and Scratch community tutorials will help students experiment with adding more complex features (e.g. levels, buttons, scoring) into their games.
The final step is a very important one, as students really appreciate the opportunity to share their creations with an authentic audience beyond their school walls. When publishing projects online through the Scratch community, remember to encourage students to include user instructions, and give credit for their use of other Scratchers' ideas. In the past, we published students' work under a school account; however, this year, my students are sharing their projects under non-identifying usernames based on their initials.
The students created this game to teach others the names of colours in the Indonesian language.
A two player racing game created by a Grade 5 student, with multiple levels, buttons, and arrow key/WASD controls.
"Adventure" features the fluent use of coordinate position, custom code, operators, variables, and IF/THEN branching. Created by an experienced Grade 6 student
Moo Moo, a complex platform game featuring the gravity motion effect in Scratch - which affects how the character responds to arrow key input. Created by a very enthusiastic Year 6 student with some prior Scratch experience.
Created by one of my most experienced Grade 6 students, this is an apparently simple character customisation game with many levels of detail and options in response to user input (buttons and text input).
The "Impossible Ultimate Maze Deluxe" is an excellent name for this project, which includes the advanced use of variables, IF/THEN conditionals, sensing, and operator blocks. Created by an advanced Grade 6 student.
If you'd like to see more of my students' projects, I am building a 2017 Scratch Game Design Studio at https://scratch.mit.edu/studios/3968975/. Projects range in quality from an upper primary/elementary A to C standard according to our Western Australian Digital Technologies Curriculum.
In 2017, I am trialling various approaches to assessing my students' game design projects, and their demonstration of visual programming skills. I am currently using a combination of student self-evaluation questions, interviews, and a checklist of age-appropriate Scratch skills to inform my assessments.
I am not yet in a position to give a definitive answer to how to best assess student's Scratch projects; however, I must stress that if a student uses particular Scratch skills (e.g. variables, operators or IF/THEN conditionals), they must be able to explain their use either verbally, or by including written comments in their code. I have found many beginner Scratchers copy tutorials and remix other Scratchers' projects, often without understanding the underlying computer science concepts or skills.
The following are example rubrics and assessment tools which you may find useful in developing your own assessment tools.
Student Self Evaluation / Reflection Questions
Teacher_Reflection_Tool.pdfSTEM Video Game Rubric.pdf
