Understanding Variable in Scratch
This project is about the development of an ID project about how to teach the concept of “variables” in computer programming. The target learners were pre-service teachers who were interested in having a computer educator license. My team and I were especially interested in how to teach coding to students in a more effective and easier way. And since variable is a very important prerequisite in learning to code, we wanted to come up with an instructional design that would help the students effectively learn the concept of variable in more visual and tangible way.
Design & Development
For design process, we followed the Dick and Carey’s instructional design model. We first identified instructional goals, analyzed learners, context, task, and objectives, developed assessment instrument and strategy, and then developed instructional materials.
We have developed this instructor manual, and student workbook as a supplementary guide for instructors and students. The contents of two are basically the same, but the instructor manual has the comment boxes added to it to let them know what to do for each section. The reason for this format was to let the instructors know what the students were looking at in their workbook, and if the students have any questions, instructor can know where the question was coming from.
We’ve also developed Nearpod slides to more actively engage students in the instruction. Since the instruction is about coding, everything could have been done on the computer, but we wanted to give more tangible and visualizable ideas about such an abstract concept with unplugged activities to help the students’ understanding.
Nearpod Instruction Slides
So what we came up with were to use metaphorical learning with boxes. The instructor would bring in a few boxes, and label the box. Then the instructor will invite the students to find an object that would go inside the box, but emphasize that only one object can go inside a box at a time. In the picture below, the box is the variable, label is the name of the variable, and the object is the value of the variable. This activity will help students to visualize an abstract concept and to more engage them in the instruction.
The instructor demonstrates where variables can be found on the internet, such as Twitter. Variables are used as placeholders for name, email address, and even username. That way, we can let the program know where
those details will appear after the user fills them in. Students need to know variables can also be used in many occasions. They are used for creating games, stories, and quizzes, etc. And then the instructor provides some links of example projects that used variables in Scratch to students.
Variables used in our daily lives (software)
Variables used in Scratch
In the end, we surveyed for the summative evaluation of the class activities. According to the survey results, on the relevance of learning activities to the class’s overall goals, the learners rated 4.1 out of 5. On the quality of the instructional material, they gave 4.5. Most of the learners stated that the unplugged demonstration was helpful for them to understand that variables were like containers that stored information. In total, 73% learners were satisfied with such learning activities and evaluated they could be actively engaged in the learning process.
My Role
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Analyze Instructional Needs
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Document Review
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Develop the Outline of Instructional Materials
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Develop Assessment Tools
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Conduct Formative and Summative evaluation
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Create Nearpod Slides
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Design Book Cover