Enough time for Scratch?

« Teaching with Scratch

2 replies [Last post]

Michelle Ciccone

Member

May 19, 2016

Hi there,

I want to incorporate Scratch into my 7th grade technology class curriculum. The problem is this is just a trimester long class that meets twice a week, and I need to cover other curriculum too. My question is: Is 4 hours (spread over 10ish weeks) a worthwhile amount of time to introduce students to Scratch? Of course longer would be better, but that may be all I have available. My goal isn't to produce programmers of course, just to show that they can learn too, and maybe inspire some students to learn more.

Thank you for any feedback!

Replies

Keith Wilson

Member

July 13, 2016

Gidday,
I work with primary classroom teachers for two hours per week and we focus on a topic from their regular program. So far, across different schools, it's been Charlotte's Web, Comics, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Vietnamese boat people. This term I'm helping Year 6 with Australian Federation. Teachers are happy, the Principal is happy and of course the kids are happy. Anywhere a black line master can be replaced is a bonus, but the big seller is that these activities are "instead of" not "in addition to".
Hope this helps.

Diane Walters

Member

July 09, 2016

Hello I have a similar challenge. I have been given 10 days to introduce Computer Science as part of the 8th grade Technology class in my school. A class period is 40 minutes long. It does not seem to be enough time to really get involved with Scratch. However I will be able to introduce it. I am using the Creative Computing curriculum as well as some content from The Hour of Code website. This will be the first time that my school is adding Computer Science to the curriculum. I am hoping to spark some student interest and if so maybe we can get more involved with Scratch in an after school program.