Scratch Project Rubrics

Project rubrics outline the criteria used to evaluate student work. A Scratch project rubric can be generated by the teacher or together with students. Rubrics are easy to use and helpful:

Tools for both teaching and assessment.
In allowing students to become more thoughtful when judging the quality of their own Scratch projects and other Scratch projects.
In reducing the amount of time spent evaluating student work.
In allowing teachers to evaluate students of all abilities including students who are gifted and those with learning disabilities.
In explaining evaluation to students.

(Goodrich, 1997)

Creating a class generated Scratch rubric:

Get students to check out projects on the Scratch website and identify what qualities made for a good project. It is easy to find the good and bad projects because statistics are kept for each uploaded project. A popular project will have lots of love-its, re-mixes and downloads. See featured Scratch projects at the project share website .
Together with students list some of the characteristics of a good project. For example some of the good project qualities: the project works well, easy to use, easy to understand, creative, fun to play, funny, cool, advanced scripts, cool sprites and backgrounds, creative drawings, and creative stories.
Use student feedback to create categories for evaluation. For example project design/creativity, user friendliness, programming, backgrounds and sprites.
Come up with different levels of quality. For example: excellent, good, average and needs more work.
Create the rubric keeping in mind discussions of common problems and the qualities of good and not so good projects.
Using the freshly created rubric, chose several projects and evaluate them in groups or as a class.

(Goodrich, 1997)

An example of a class generated Scratch rubric:

	Excellent	Good	Average	Needs more work
Project Design/Creativity	Project is very creative and clearly demonstrates unique ideas. Well written advanced design.	Creative and has a unique design.	Somewhat creative and unique ideas. Some project design may have been copied from other projects.	Project incomplete.
User friendliness	Project is extremely user-friendly.	Project is user friendly and easy to understand.	Project is not so user-friendly; some parts are not easy to understand.	Project is not user friendly. Difficult to understand what it does or how to use it.
Programming (Scripts)	Scripts are all working, very well designed and using advanced programming techniques. Student has very good understanding of scripts.	All scripts are working and the student understands all the scripts.	Scripts may have some errors and do not work perfectly. Student does not understand some of the scripts.	Scripts do not work.
Backgrounds and Sprites	Are all named properly, and very well designed. They fit together very well making the project look like an advanced design.	Are all named properly and blend nicely together to enhance the project design.	Some have not been named and do not blend well into the project.	They have not been named correctly. They are designed poorly and distract from the project design.

Project Design/Creativity

Excellent: Project is very creative and clearly demonstrates unique ideas. Well written advanced design.
Good: Creative and has a unique design.
Average: Somewhat creative and unique ideas. Some project design may have been copied from other projects.
Needs more work: Project incomplete.

User friendliness

Excellent: Project is extremely user-friendly.
Good: Project is user friendly and easy to understand.
Average: Project is not so user-friendly; some parts are not easy to understand.
Needs more work: Project is not user friendly. Difficult to understand what it does or how to use it.

Programming (Scripts)

Excellent: Scripts are all working, very well designed and using advanced programming techniques. Student has very good understanding of scripts.
Good: All scripts are working and the student understands all the scripts.
Average: Scripts may have some errors and do not work perfectly. Student does not understand some of the scripts.
Needs more work: Scripts do not work.

Backgrounds and Sprites

Excellent: Are all named properly, and very well designed. They fit together very well making the project look like an advanced design.
Good: Are all named properly and blend nicely together to enhance the project design.
Average: Some have not been named and do not blend well into the project.
Needs more work: They have not been named correctly. They are designed poorly and distract from the project design.

To download a pdf version of this rubric right click on the link and choose from the menu, the save link as.. option.

References

Goodrich, H. 1997. Understanding rubrics. Educational Leadership 54 (4): 14-17. Retrieved Nov. 4, 2012, from: http://learnweb.harvard.edu/alps/thinking/docs/rubricar.htm external .