A solid green bubble on a programming level in CS Discoveries, CS Principles, or CSA courses means that the student has indicated they are done with the given level.
In these courses, we strive to give students an opportunity to express their creativity and think outside the box, so we are less prescriptive for how students complete a level.
For example, we may ask the student to draw a square on the screen, but might not care if it’s a specific size or color. This means that different students can have completely different and valid solutions for the same programming level, and makes it very difficult for us to automatically validate students’ work.
Do you do any auto-validation of student work in CSD/P/A?
On Game Lab, Web Lab, App Lab, or Java Lab levels, we do check to make sure students have changed code on the level before allowing them to proceed to the next level. Students who hit the 'Finish' button without changing code are warned that their work is unfinished and advised to stay on the level. If they choose to proceed anyway, the level will remain 'In progress' (
) rather than showing as 'Completed' (
).
NOTE: We define a 'code change' as any change to the text in a level's code editor. Adding or removing whitespace (spaces, tabs, newlines, etc) is not considered a code change, but adding or removing comments is considered a code change. Changes to images, assets, or design mode elements (App Lab) are also not considered code changes. Levels where no code is expected to change have had this functionality disabled.
How do I know if my students got the right answer?
We recommend looking at student work on levels marked as recommended assessment opportunities to determine if a student is grasping key concepts. This approach will hopefully alleviate the need to go through and check each student’s work on every level. If you see a specific student is missing key concepts on an assessment opportunity, then you can go back and look at other skill building levels to see where they might be struggling.
What happens if my students did not actually finish the level that's marked as 'Completed'?
If your students did not actually finish the programming level before moving on, you can update their level progress to report as 'In progress' rather than 'Completed' and automatically notify them that they need to Keep Working on the level. Learn how in this support article.
Want to learn more about assessing student work?
Check out these resources: