Milestone Assessment

What we’re looking for:

Self-improvement

identifying problems, and coming up with concrete/specific ways to address them
setting realistic and achievable goals, and making a plan for how to work towards each goal
reflecting on your progress towards achieving each goal, and ways to improve in the future

Code style and clarity

Code improvement

reflecting on the style and quality of your own code, and identifying ways of improving your code
evidence of debugging skills and of reflecting on and learning from mistakes
evidence of planning and reflection on craftsmanship and code quality and correctness

Not all of these will be applicable to every milestone, but these are the skills that we hope you will gain over the course of the semester.

For each milestone write-up, you will be assessed on a specific subset of the overall criteria below.

Identifying Problems

Scale	Description
Needs Improvement	Was unable to identify any problems.
Okay	Was able to somewhat identify problems.
Good	Was able to identify some relevant problems.
Great	Was able to identify some specific, relevant problems.
Awesome	Was able to identify many/all specific, relevant problems.

Coming up with concrete/specific ways to address problems

Scale	Description
Needs Improvement	Was unable to identify any solutions to address problems.
Okay	Was somewhat able to identify solutions (which may not be sensible or feasible).
Good	Was able to identify possible solutions to address problems.
Great	Was able to identify specific solutions to address problems.
Awesome	Was able to come up with specific feasible and realistic solutions to address problems.

Setting realistic and achievable goals

Scale	Description
Needs Improvement	Did not attempt to set any goals.
Okay	Attempted to set goals (which may not have been appropriate or achievable).
Good	Set appropriate goals (which may not have been sufficiently specific).
Great	Set specific, appropriate goals.
Awesome	Set specific goals that were appropriate, realistic, and achievable.

Making a plan for how to work towards goals

Scale	Description
Needs Improvement	Did not attempt to make a plan.
Okay	Attempted to make a plan (which may not have been realistic or specific).
Good	Made a realistic plan for how to achieve the goal.
Great	Made a specific plan for how to achieve the goal (which may not have been sufficiently detailed or thorough).
Awesome	Made a specific and thorough plan for how to achieve the goal, which could have been easily carried out.

Reflecting on progress towards goals

Scale	Description
Needs Improvement	No mention of progress towards goal.
Okay	Some mention of progress towards goal (without any reflection, e.g. purely a statement of facts).
Good	Some reflection on progress towards goals.
Great	Reflection on progress towards goals.
Awesome	In-depth, thoughtful reflection on progress towards goal.

Reflecting on “lessons learned” or ways to improve in the future (from setting and attempting goals)

Scale	Description
Needs Improvement	No mention of ways to improve in the future.
Okay	Some/vague mention of ways to improve in the future.
Good	Identified “lessons learned” or ways to improve in the future.
Great	Identified specific “lessons learned” or ways to improve in the future.
Awesome	In-depth, thoughtful reflection on lessons learned from working towards the goal, and how to apply those to future situations.

Clear and correct code for most programming activities

Scale	Description
Needs Improvement	No attempt to make code readable and/or correct.
Okay	Some effort has been made to make code readable and/or correct, but there are still issues.
Good	Code is overall mostly clear and correct, but there are still some issues.
Great	Code is clear and correct, with no technical style issues but still room for improvement.
Awesome	A significant and very successful attempt to make code that is clear, elegant, and correct.

Clear and correct code for assignments

Scale	Description
Needs Improvement	No attempt to make code readable and/or correct.
Okay	Some effort has been made to make code readable and/or correct, but there are still issues.
Good	Code is overall mostly clear and correct, but there are still some issues.
Great	Code is clear and correct, with no technical style issues but still room for improvement.
Awesome	A significant and very successful attempt to make code that is clear, elegant, and correct.

An understanding of the attributes of good code

Scale	Description
Needs Improvement	No evidence of any understanding of the attributes of good code.
Okay	Some/minimal understanding of the attributes of good code.
Good	A basic understanding of the attributes of good code.
Great	A good understanding of the attributes of good code.
Awesome	A deep and thoughtful understanding about the attributes of good code.

An appreciation for programming style

Scale	Description
Needs Improvement	No evidence of any understanding of programming style.
Okay	Some/minimal understanding of programming style.
Good	A basic understanding of programming style.
Great	A good understanding of programming style.
Awesome	A comprehensive and convincing understanding of programming style.

Reflecting on the style and quality of your own code

Scale	Description
Needs Improvement	No mention of style or quality of own code.
Okay	Some mention of style or quality of own code (without any reflection, e.g. purely a statement of facts).
Good	Some reflection on style and quality of own code.
Great	Reflection on style and quality of own code.
Awesome	In-depth, thoughtful reflection on style and quality of own code.

Identifying ways of improving your work

Scale	Description
Needs Improvement	No mention of ways to improve code.
Okay	Was somewhat able to identify ways to improve code (which may not be sufficient or feasible).
Good	Was able to identify possible ways to improve code (which may not be specific).
Great	Was able to identify specific ways to improve code.
Awesome	Identified specific, accurate, realistic, and thoughtful ways to improve code.

Evidence of debugging skills

Scale	Description
Needs Improvement	No mention of debugging or debugging skills.
Okay	Some mention of bugs encountered, and/or approach taken to fix them.
Good	Description of bugs encountered, and the methods/approach taken to fix them.
Great	Analysis of bugs encountered, with a sensible and methodical approach taken to fix them.
Awesome	Thorough analysis of bugs encountered, with a well-developed and effective general approach to identifying and fixing bugs, that could be applied to any future programming situations.

Reflecting on and learning from (technical) mistakes

Scale	Description
Needs Improvement	No mention of ways to improve in the future.
Okay	Some/vague mention of ways to improve in the future.
Good	Identified “lessons learned” or ways to improve in the future.
Great	Identified specific “lessons learned” or ways to improve in the future.
Awesome	In-depth, thoughtful reflection on lessons learned from technical mistakes, and how to apply those to future situations.