It’s taken just over a year, but I have just realized that I need to create a checklist for when I create a new lesson. I’ve learned so much in this past year about education, computational thinking, and computer science education, that there’s no possible way I can remember and apply all the lessons I’ve learned, unless I have all those lessons listed in a handy dandy checklist.
What better place to start than with an assessment design checklist? This checklist is more than a list of things that I need to do when I design an assessment, but a list of questions for me to consider during the design process and a way to get me thinking about how students can show their understanding.
I have two questions on my assessment design checklist list so far:
- Do students understand the learning target?
- Does the assessment leverage existing specific pedagogical knowledge about student understanding of CS concepts?
These are extremely basic educational ideas. And that’s okay. I’m a novice teacher. Moving on from “complete this project that I just demoed” and “this is the most recent thing that I just learned about CS ed” is a huge step for me, and I’m looking forward to seeing the results of this improved systematic preparation.
From Computer Programmer to CS Teacher 