Misconceptions: Students have difficulty distinguishing between the Broadcast and Say blocks in Scratch.
Misconception: Students have trouble understanding the difference between the “glide” and “go to” blocks in Scratch.
Create a handout that translates code in Scratch to code in Logo in order to show students that they are capable of writing text-based code because they already program in Scratch.
Misconception: Students who are familiar with writing code in block-based languages like Scratch still need support transitioning to text-based languages like Java.
Misconception: Students think you can use the “item (any) of (list)” block in Snap! and Scratch to check for every item in a list, but this block actually returns a random item.
Use Droplet, a blocks-based text editor, to help bridge students’ learning gap between blocks and text.
Have students simulate programming in Scratch in a pair activity where one student is the Controller and the other is the Code.
Emphasize that Scratch is REAL coding; this lets students know that programming in educational languages like Scratch or Python is valuable even though these languages aren’t commonly used in industry.
Introduce the playnote block in Scratch by having students experiment with different arguments for the block and creating melodies.
Have students write Knock-Knock jokes in Scratch by making a conversation between sprites to motivate the introduction of broadcast blocks.