CTE-STEM 2022 conference

How to Teach Coding through Stories in Early Childhood Classrooms

Burcu ÇABUK — 2022-06-09

Computational thinking is important for everyone and focuses on solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behavior through fundamental concepts of computer science. Early years are important for young students to learn coding, and at the same time, they can improve problem solving and computational thinking skills. Coding can be introduced to students through unplugged and plugged activities. Unplugged activities are more appropriate for young students since they contain concrete practices and teach main coding concepts in an entertaining, motivating, and challenging way in accordance with the developmental levels of children. Owing to this fact, the purpose of the current study was to demonstrate the implementation of stories as unplugged activities for teaching coding at an early childhood level. In the context of this study, preschool teacher candidates were considered and a 14-weeks-training (including theory and practice sessions) was implemented to teach computational thinking, coding concepts, and STEAM activities. After this training, teacher candidates engaged in creating unplugged activities to teach coding to preschoolers. In this respect, the study considered two different unplugged activities: Storigami (implementation of origami activities through stories) and Coding through Stories. Hence, 15 teacher candidates learned successfully how to teach coding and created various stories to teach coding to preschoolers. This paper introduces these activities as appropriate unplugged activities on the way of introducing coding concepts to young children. In the light of the findings, suggestions were presented to preschool teacher candidates, teachers, teacher training instructors and researchers.

Bebras in the Digital Game for Students’ Computational Thinking Abilities

Yan-Ming CHEN — 2022-06-10

Bebras is widely known and used to enhance and examine students' computational thinking abilities. In order to make the testing process more intriguing, this study developed a digital game <Captain Bebras> with historical narrative background. This study aims to examine elementary school students' computational thinking abilities playing the game. The digital game simulates the historical events of the Great Voyage time with a map showing various tasks that the player has to perform with computational thinking abilities. Eight themes were classified by Bebras International Computational Thinking, including abstraction, logics, data analysis, decomposition, algorithms, simulation, system evaluation, and generalization. The core theory of each theme is integrated into the game stages, and the content of the Bebras Challenge is also used as the source of the tasks and the scoring base. By comparing students' gaming results with the traditional Bebras Challenge tests before and after the digital game, the researchers investigate students' improvement of their computational thinking abilities and the usefulness of <Captain Bebras>.

A Robotic-based Approach for CT Development

Rafael ZEREGA — 2022-06-10

In many countries worldwide, Computational thinking (CT) is now considered as a fundamental skill for dealing with the challenges of the 21st century society. One of the most common ways of imparting CT knowledge in K-12 education is by teaching programming and coding, as it requires applying a set of concepts and practices that are essential for thinking computationally. However, learning to program can be challenging and it may take time to develop these skills in the context of school activities. Thus, complementing formal K-12 education with after-school or other types of informal learning activities aimed at fostering CT concepts and practices among young students can be an alternative approach to develop these skills. During the summer of 2021, we carried out a series of workshops in the context of a summer camp taking place at a public library, organized by a local municipality in southern Sweden. These workshops (with a total teaching duration of 20 hours in one week) consisted of activities where children aged 11-14 had to assemble wheeled robots and then program them using a visual language to make them execute different types of tasks and challenges. The outcomes of our study show that roughly one third of the participants managed to program the robots with code that made use of CT core concepts, such as conditionals, loops, and logical operators, among others. The rest of the children did not manage to successfully apply these concepts and thus they could only manage to program sequential linear scripts. We argue that learning to program and understanding some of the main CT concepts, which are for the most part very abstract, is a process that takes time and thus, extracurricular activities can be an effective method to complement formal education and help young students develop their CT and programming skills.

Modelling Zombies and Other Diseases

Faron MOLLER — 2022-06-10

Technocamps1 is a national outreach programme based at Swansea University which - amongst many other things - provides STEM-based workshops to schools and young people. Before 2020, one popular set of Technocamps computational thinking workshops was on modelling the spread of diseases, which for our audience was a zombie infection. These workshops were all unplugged in nature and involved spreading diseases by passing around tokens. Different numbers of tokens were passed about, representing the ability of the disease to spread; and participants might be vaccinated giving them immunity. By changing such factors, the young people could watch how the disease might overcome the class or might die out. These workshops were particularly popular when presented in conjunction with the Royal Institution's Christmas Lectures - a series of popular lectures to young people - in December 2019 which were on understanding probability. Little did we know that our workshop series would take on a frighteningly real purpose a few months later. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the public has been bombarded with messages about how governments were "following the science" and presented with images which "model the spread of the virus" and "track the R-value" in different regions of the world. Independent of our outreach activities, we developed visualization tools for public - and government - understanding of the science which we adapted into our outreach workshops. In this paper, we reflect on the effect of these workshops in explaining to young people the power of computational thinking in modelling diseases, and the extent to which they gained an understanding of this and of the current pandemic.

Integrating Game-based Learning into Computational Thinking Class for Lower Primary Students

Shuha ZHANG — 2022-06-10

Computational thinking (CT) has been integrated into K-12 curricula globally. With the growing trend of initiating CT in early childhood education, great effort has been made in developing age-appropriate courses targeting young children. This study aims to introduce an instructional unit of CT instruction for children aged 5-7, Coding Galaxy-Foundation, where unplugged activities and digital game-based learning were applied. A public primary school in Hong Kong was invited for delivering the course, where Grade 1 and Grade 3 students were involved (N=57). Six lessons were selected, covering basic CT concepts including sequences, decomposition, events, relative direction, debugging, loops, pattern recognition, and conditionals. Each lesson consisted of three sections, namely, a) concept introduction with daily-life examples, b) unplugged activities based on puzzles, and c) digital game practices with Coding Galaxy game app. Students' attainment from the course was assessed in both cognitive and attitudinal facets. The results indicated that the course was effective in sustaining students' CT cognitive performance and improving students' coding attitudes, and female and Grade 3 cohorts were the most beneficiaries. Implications for further research and educational practices are discussed.

Integrating CT into Biology

Jacqueline NIJENHUIS-VOOGT — 2022-06-10

The integration of computational thinking (CT) into subject learning has the potential not only to foster digital literacy, but also to deepen STEM learning because the use of computational models and development of computational solutions advances students' understanding of subject area content. However, designing and implementing a curriculum that effectively integrates STEM and CT is challenging for educators because they have little experience in computing terminology, key concepts, and approaches to learning. We therefore aimed to develop CT integrated K-12 lessons in collaboration with subject teachers to determine suitable CT learning objectives as well as teaching and learning strategies. In this study, we focus on a 9th-grade biology lesson where students were asked to construct decision trees for determining cell types in as few steps as possible. Decision trees form a computational model that fits a wide range of classification systems in biology. We investigated the effect of using decision trees on students' biology and CT learning outcomes by analyzing their end products in the assignment. Additionally, we analyzed students' and teachers' views about the CT integrated lesson using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. We found that students valued the way a decision tree helps them to structure the information. The teacher expressed that drawing a decision tree enabled the students to reason about the cell types, fostering a different way of thinking. Regarding CT, decision trees may help to improve decision analysis and classification, which are related to abstraction and algorithmic thinking skills.

A STEM-based Learning Activity Instructional Design of Quadruped Bionic Robots

Shaun-Wen Chen — 2022-06-10

This study designs a STEM-based learning activities related to bionic robots and examines students' learning performance of the instructional design. With the rapid development of science and technology, robots play an important role in human society, helping people in solving repetitive work using automatic objects in biological mechanical structure. However, quadruped bionic robots are usually expensive due to its mobility and stability control of locomotion. In this study, a quadruped bionic robot is designed using the linkage mechanism using 3D printing combined with the Micro:bit control board for motion. The purpose of this study is not only to experiment the making of a bionic robot, but also to construct an instructional design for the first-time STEM and robotics learners to learn basic mechanical structure, fabrication process, and programming using MakeCode. This production process is expected to inspire the students' learning motivation in the robotic production, and to improve mechanical concept and computational thinking.

Comparison of STEM, non-STEM, and Mixed-Disciplines Pre-service Teachers’ Early Conceptions about Computational Thinking

Wendy HUANG — 2022-06-10

This paper presents the results of an investigation on pre-service teacher' conceptions of computational thinking (CT) in Singapore prior to a two-hour introductory module on CT. Of 407 teachers, 280 provided valid responses to the pre-survey, which included questions on teachers' school subjects, current understandings of CT, confidence in their understandings of CT, and sources of the understandings. We deductively coded the open-ended responses through thematic analysis using four categories from a synthesis review on teachers' preconceptions of CT. The participants were classified into three groups, including STEM (primarily sciences and mathematics), non-STEM (e.g., humanities and languages), and mixed-disciplines (e.g., science and English language arts). The findings of the pre-survey showed that 42% of respondents (n=118) reported no prior knowledge of CT. Among the remaining 162 responses, the most popular view of CT was problem solving using various kinds of thinking, such as "logic", "abstraction", "step-by-step", and "decomposition" (n=106). STEM and mixed disciplines teachers (33%) reported higher levels of confidence compared to non-STEM teachers (15%). A higher percentage of STEM (64%) and mixed-disciplines (60%) pre-service teachers indicated learning about CT from formal courses during their university studies or teacher training, compared to non-STEM teachers (52%). This suggests that schools of education can play a bigger role in expanding CT awareness among pre-service teachers from non-STEM backgrounds. Finally, implications for teacher education are widely discussed.

Understanding Teachers’ Attitudes and Self-Assessment Towards Computational Thinking

María ZAPATA-CÁCERES — 2022-06-10

Around the world, attention is being paid to computational thinking (CT) in education. Integration into school curricula places additional demands on teachers, promoting the skills and attitudes necessary to teach and integrate CT into education. Above all, it is important that teachers themselves are aware of the importance of CT and have a clear perception of its meaning. To enable an effective and developmentally-enhancing implementation of CT in education, teachers must have competence to teach CT, recognize from what age CT can be taught, and how to transfer the acquired CT skills to other school subjects and areas. Therefore, we collected and compared data among schoolteachers from four different countries to enlighten their attitudes towards CT, their opinion about opportunities and possibilities for integrating CT into education, and how and from what age CT can best be applied. Furthermore, by administering and evaluating the Beginners Computational Thinking Test (BCTt), teachers' perspectives regarding this validated instrument for the assessment of CT are analysed. From qualitative data obtained, we could deduce information about teachers' self-assessment of competence, confidence, and motivation to teach CT. From quantitative data collected by administering the BCTt to teachers, we obtained indications of teachers' mastery of CT competence. The data analysis confirmed our hypothesis that discrepancies exist between teachers' self-assessment and their actual CT competence. It can be argued that the findings from our research, therefore, provide valuable information for further shaping teachers' future professionalisation concerning CT.

Digital Competence & Computational Thinking for Preschool Pre-service Teachers

Ali HAMIDI — 2022-06-10

Digital competence is a skill associated with the 21-century abilities essential to contribute to today’s and tomorrow’s digital and technical environments. Computational Thinking (CT), which is a thought process for problem-solving, is one of the emerging trends that makes up digital competence. In our explorative study, we have used educational robotics with four pre-service teachers during their four-weeks placement at different preschools. We applied three distinct and complementary approaches to design and conduct this study: Systems Thinking (ST); Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge; and Computing Pedagogy. Our findings are categorized in two main perspectives: pre-service teachers and children. In the pre-service teachers' perspective, the participants indicated that their educational program lacks specific content and activities related to digital competence, CT, and programming. Despite the initial pre-service teachers’ thoughts on improvement of children's CT concepts, the findings show that CT practices such as collaboration and trial and error were developed. From the children’s perspective, the empirical findings illustrate that digital competence and CT development vary depending on the age of the children; whereas logical thinking and pattern recognition are skills that were present along the whole age range of children (ages 2-6), other CT skills like algorithmic thinking were developed among older children only (aged 5-6). We learned that an ST approach can be helpful, as multiple factors are involved in the practice. It reveals the underlying features of the situation that emerge when components of the system interact with each other.

Computational Thinking in Flanders’ Compulsory Education

Natacha GESQUIERE — 2022-06-10

To modernise education, the Flemish government defined new learning goals that take account of 21st-century competences, in particular on â€˜digital competence and media literacyâ€™, of which â€˜computational thinking and actingâ€™ is one of the building blocks. Since September 2019, â€˜computational thinking and actingâ€™ has been compulsory in secondary schools in Flanders. The basic concepts decomposition, abstraction, pattern recognition and generalisation, and algorithm have been pushed forward. A closer look at the newly defined learning goals clarified that â€˜actingâ€™ is about basic knowledge in computer science and computational thinking practices. The learning objectives show that â€˜computational thinking and actingâ€™ is best addressed interdisciplinary in a socially relevant context. Based on the abundant scientific literature on the subject, we found these goals to fit into an international perspective. To support teachers, we are adjusting the teaching materials we already developed on physical computing, programming, and AI

The TACTIDE EU STEM project

Marc Jansen — 2022-06-10

One major challenge the educational community is facing relates to how to effectively integrate computational thinking (CT) concepts and ideas into a particular school curriculum. Acquiring CT-skills by means of STEM offers rich opportunities within studentsÂ´ education which may lead to learning gains. Previous research has shown that, to maximize the appeal and potential of CT learning environments, a precondition must be set first. The materials used must invite problem-based, inquiry-based and self-discovery learning, must be used without creating misconceptions and, above all, must give students the opportunity to acquire knowledge that can be directly transferred to everyday practice in an accessible manner. All the above puts demands on teachers who carry out learning and teaching in these environments. The EU funded TACTIDE project has tried to incorporate relevant curricular components into a coherent task, implementing assignments and challenges across different subjects and curricula of three different European countries. Based on the analysis of each national curricula, common topics have been identified and sub-scenarios have been developed. These sub-scenarios have been conceived to promote the integration between the topics mediated by CT. To achieve this objective, a greenhouse scenario has been conceptualized and designed towards teaching CT, by the use of microcontrollers such as the BBC micro:bit and the Calliope Mini, as an overarching STEM-topic. Using available sub-scenarios, a Moodle-course for teachers was developed for daily school activities to which other subjects in the core curriculum were interconnected in order to integrate CT skills and abilities. Scalability across different school levels and heterogeneous groups of learners, especially focusing prior knowledge, have been considered important design elements.

How the Pre-service Teachers Associate Computational Thinking with Programming?

Megumi IWATA — 2022-06-11

There is a growing interest among educators to integrate computational thinking into basic education. Computational thinking is a complex concept and difficult to understand especially for those who have limited theoretical knowledge about this concept and no background in the computer science. Question arises, whether we reach the high-standard learning goals without comprehensive understanding of computer science. Therefore, there is a need to study computational thinking and how it should be introduced to pre-service teachers with little knowledge and experience in computer science and programming. This study aims to explore pre-service teachers' understanding of computational thinking in the context of an introductory programming course. We focus on to what extent the pre-service teachers recognize computational thinking during the course and how they associate their conceptual understanding of computational thinking with the concrete programming practices. We undertake in-depth analysis of five pre-service teachers who were novices in programming. The assignments and the survey after the course are analysed. The preliminary results show that sequencing from unplugged activities to computerized activities and project work helps the pre-service teachers recognized computational thinking. Understanding of the relationship between computational thinking and programming was diverse. Some explained that computational thinking helps understanding the code. This study provides insights of how computational thinking should be introduced along the way of learning programming.

Pedagogical Use of Scratch Coding for Co-Developing English Language “Locations and Directions” Building Blocks and Computational Thinking

Siu Cheung KONG — 2022-06-11

This study designed and evaluated a pedagogical innovation which used Scratch coding to foster Grade 4 students to co-develop subject knowledge and computational thinking (CT) in English Language classrooms. A 280-minute teaching in four lessons was arranged for 205 students from ten selected Grade 4 classes in three primary schools at Hong Kong. The Scratch-based pedagogy "To Play and Learn, To Think and Navigate, To Code“ - supplementary with four Scratch games and four Scratch activity worksheets - was trialed for engaging students in Scratch coding to explore, think about, apply and consolidate English Language building blocks for talking about locations and directions. The pre-post-test results provide statistically significant evidence that students can advance all three topic-specific knowledge points and all four target CT concepts after learning under the designed pedagogy. The questionnaire survey results reveal the impact of the designed pedagogy on students' growing awareness of the two target CT practices, and their growing confidence in coding. The focus group interview results reveal students' confirmation on their success in and satisfaction with the designed pedagogy for developing English Language knowledge and CT competency through coding. This study validates that the pedagogical innovation of learning through coding is potential to foster the co-development of subject knowledge and CT competency in Grade 4 English Language classrooms. Future directions of integrating coding activities into senior primary curriculum are discussed.

Computational Thinking Dashboard

Bhoomika Agarwal — 2022-06-11

Computational Thinking (CT) - the process of thinking like a programmer or computer scientist - is a skill that that has the potential to transform the way students learn at educational institutions in different domains and different grade levels. With the increasing integration of CT in classrooms, there is a growing need for CT assessment tools to evaluate the acquisition of CT skills. This research develops a framework for CT assessment that detects user micro-interactions in a university-level self-paced Python beginners course integrated into Jupyter notebooks. The users can improve their learning with the help of feedback via CT dashboards as part of this framework. A user evaluation study was conducted which showed that this framework can be used to improve the acquisition of CT skills via programming. The main contributions of this framework are the mapping between CT skills and user micro-interactions and development of the CT dashboards to help the user self-regulate their learning of programming. The framework developed can be easily integrated into any course that teaches Python programming using Jupyter notebooks and is yet to be extended to other programming courses.

Solving Domain-Specific Problems with Computational Thinking

Sharon CALOR — 2022-06-11

Computational thinking (CT) skills are crucial for every modern profession in which large amounts of data are processed. In K-12 curricula, CT skills are often taught in separate programming courses. However, without specific instructions, CT skills are not automatically transferred to other domains in the curriculum when they are developed while learning to program in a separate programming course. In modern professions, CT is often applied in the context of a specific domain. Therefore, learning CT skills in other domains, as opposed to computer science, could be of great value. CT and domain-specific subjects can be combined in different ways. In the CT literature, a distinction can be made among CT applications that substitute, augment, modify or redefine the original subject. On the substitute level, CT replaces exercises but CT is not necessary for reaching the learning outcomes. On the redefining level, CT changes the questions that can be posed within the subject, and learning objectives and assessment are integrated. In this short paper, we present examples of how CT and history, mathematics, biology and language subjects can be combined at all four levels. These examples and the framework on which they are based provide a guideline for design-based research on CT and subject integration.

An Exploratory Study of the Relationship between Computational Thinking and Creative Attitudes among University Students

Masanori FUKUI — 2022-06-11

This study aimed to explore the relationship between the computational thinking scale (CTS) and the creative attitudes scale among university students. A total of 93 university students were tested on the CTS ("creativity," "algorithmic thinking," "cooperativity," critical thinking," and "problem solving") and the scale of creative attitudes ("flexibility," "analytical problem solving," "entrepreneurship," "perseverance," "imagination," and "co-operation"). The results show a significant correlation between the majority of CTS factors and creative attitudes. However, imagination and co-operation are only correlated with one or two CTS factors. Therefore, we identified factors of CTS and the creative attitudes that are related to each other.

A Review of Reviews on Computational Thinking Assessment in Higher Education

Xiaoling Zhang — 2022-06-11

There is an urgent need for educating the next generation of learners with digital tools and making use of digital practices and skills. Education on computational thinking (CT) is widespread around the world with a dominant focus on K-12. Recently also higher education has come more to the focus of CTE. However, most of the work on CT in higher education has been focused on teaching and learning programming while less attention has been paid to the underlying skills and competences of CT in different domains. In this article 11 reviews were analyzed to identify constructs being assessed, methods and their characteristics for the delivery of assessment and the context in which the assessment were conducted. The findings indicate that there is certain consensus in the field on what constructs to measure. Last but not least, it was determined from our study that there are often no standards or principles followed for the design of assessment.

Developing a Continuous, Rather Than Binary, Classification for Measuring STEM Jobs

Ted CARMICHAEL — 2022-06-11

This paper presents our review and synthesis of the literature on STEM classification, and our results for a novel approach towards understanding, categorizing, and tracking STEM attributes in the workplace. We found two deficiencies in the way STEM is traditionally discussed, which we attempt to address in this work. The first is that the key components of STEM tend to be discussed holistically in the literature, rather than discretely as Science, Technology, Education, and Mathematics. The second is that our ability to track changes in S.T.E.M. concentrations in the workplace, both geographically and temporally, is underdeveloped. Further, we have found that this second deficiency is due, in part, to how STEM occupations are categorized; i.e., "STEM" tends to be a binary designation, rather than measured on a continuum for each job, and each component of S.T.E.M. It is also due to the lack of a "gold standard" measurement of the quantity of S.T.E.M. for all occupations. Here, we present a novel approach for machine learning algorithms using a "bag of words" method. These algorithms are trained on a small selection of Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) occupations, using ratings for each component of S.T.E.M. as the exemplars on which to train (SOC 2019). Recognizing that such a classification scheme is new, and that one of the goals of this project is to solicit Subject Matter Expert (SME) feedback, the resultant model of S.T.E.M. measurements across these occupations is designed to easily incorporate multiple distinct models and alternative approaches

Computational Thinking, History and Non-formal Learning-A Well-crafted Blend!

Irene SILVEIRA ALMEIDA — 2022-06-11

Computational thinking (CT) is one of the core skills required for 21st century education. As we transition from STEM to STEAM by incorporating Art, it becomes imperative to see the application of CT in Humanities. The subskills of CT can be integrated in both -formal and informal teaching-learning practices of Humanities. This paper studies guided learning practices by the instructors that enable application of CT subskills of decomposition, pattern recognition, and abstraction by students of Post Graduate History Course. This qualitative study explores development of CT skills through Historical thinking using a specifically created WhatsApp group as a communication channel for the purpose of fostering and guiding Computational Thinking Skills. This study further explores how informal learning through WhatsApp communication aids in the development of CT skills of abstraction, pattern recognition in the process of discussions and Historical thinking. The qualitative analysis of WhatsApp posts illustrate how the CT skills are nurtured and applied by students without any formal knowledge of the same. Higher frequency of learner-to-learner messaging mirrors watercooler and corridor communication and dramatically moves learning away from solely instructor-learner directional communication chains specific to traditional learning spaces. This corroborates the importance of free and informal learning space in the development of CT skills in students beyond the domain boundaries of STEM.

Design of an Evaluative Rubric for CT Integrated Curriculum in the Elementary Grades

Florence R. Sullivan — 2022-06-11

Despite the recent proliferation of research concerning integrating computational thinking (CT) into K-5th grade curriculum, there is little literature concerning how to evaluate the quality of CT integrated curricula, especially curricula integrating CT into language arts and social studies content areas. In this paper, we present a theoretically derived rubric for the evaluation of CT integrated curricula for grades K-5 across the curriculum (math, science, language arts, social studies). Our rubric is divided into two sections. The first section provides guidelines for identifying the integration type (disciplinary, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary). The second section presents six categories of evaluation that further subsume nine sub-categories. The principal categories of evaluation include the following: conceptual coherence, role of computational technology, assessment, use of multiple representations, play, and equity. We include the play category as an aspect of developmental appropriateness. Play is an important pedagogical approach for learning in the early grades. Our work takes place in the context of the Computer Science (CS) for All initiative in the United States which emphasizes the goal of improving racial and gender diversity in CS participation. Therefore, creating integrated lessons that address equity is important. Our paper describes rubric development from the theoretical perspectives that underlie the inclusion of each type, category, and sub-category. Our evaluative rubric can guide future efforts to integrate CT/CS into the elementary curricula. Researchers can utilize our rubric to evaluate and analyze CT-integrated curricula, and educators can benefit from using this rubric as a guideline for curriculum development.

Scaffolded programming projects to promote computational thinking

Victor KOLESZAR — 2022-06-11

In Uruguay, Plan Ceibal drives the complex task to impulse computational thinking in public schools. The CT framework used by the organization is to introduce computer science from primary and secondary education, with an approach focused on solving problems and coding as a language, and with the intention of taking advantage of the potential of computational thinking. In order to educate users and creators of technology. In 2021 the Computational Thinking program of Plan Ceibal impacted nearly 40 thousand students and teachers, this represents about 30% of the enrollment for K 4 to 6 courses (9 to 11 years old) of the public elementary school. This study explored the impact of the implementation of scaffolded programming projects and final evaluation, in a subset of elementary schools groups. Preliminary results suggest a good adoption of the program and high participation of students and teachers registered through the learning management system (LMS) platform. In addition, the students who had more active participation in the classes had significantly higher performances in the programming tests. Some differences were observed in favor of girls. Results are discussed in relation to the pedagogical characteristics of the program.

Log-Based Multidimensional Measurement of CT Acquisition

Rotem SRAEL-FISHELSON — 2022-06-11

Computational thinking (CT) has been proven challenging to conceptualize and assess. When assessing CT using problem-solving tasks, it is commonly measured based on achievements, that is, in a unidimensional summative way. However, this traditional measurement neglects to consider vital components of the learning progress, which may produce a richer, formative assessment. Using the log files drawn from an online learning platform for CT (Kodetu), we suggest a nuanced evaluation of CT acquisition which consists of four variables: number of attempts to solve a problem; time to solution; application of newly presented CT concept; and solution originality. The research population included 189 middle-school students who participated in a workshop aimed at promoting CT and creativity. Using a learning analytics approach, we analyzed data from a log file documenting 1478 student-task pairs. Findings suggest that these variables share some common features that make them suitable for assessing CT acquisition. Furthermore, the variables grasp different aspects of the learning progress; hence, taken together, they allow for a richer evaluation of CT acquisition. These results shed light on the importance of using diverse metrics to examine CT and contribute to the proliferation of assessment practices.

The Effect of Unplugged Programming and Visual Programming on Computational Thinking in Children Aged 5 to 7

Lisa BOSGOED — 2022-06-10

This research focuses on the development of computational thinking (CT) among one-hundred and eight primary school pupils in the Netherlands aged five to seven years. It compares the use of unplugged programming and visual programming with on-screen output. In addition to the effect of using different programming environments, this research also establishes whether age differences and prior knowledge of programming have an additional influence. By means of a pretest-posttest design, using the validated quantitative instrument TechCheck, possible differences between the development of CT in both experimental groups and a control group could be objectively determined. To this end, pupils from both experimental groups have applied during five programming sessions of forty-five minutes each either unplugged story introduced smart games or used the plugged-in programming environment ScratchJr. Our results show a significant difference in CT development between unplugged programming and visual programming with on-screen output. Moreover, unplugged programming had a more positive effect on the development of CT compared to the control group than visual programming with on-screen output. A moderating effect could be attributed to age differences and prior knowledge of programming. This may provide an additional explanation regarding the identified impact and significant differences found.

Precoding skills - Teaching computational thinking to preschoolers in Singapore using unplugged activities

Vidhi Singhal — 2022-06-10

Computational Thinking (CT) by now is widely recognized as an important skill in K-12 education. Research suggests that, during children's early formative years, certain types of experiences, including exploration, exposure to basic skills, and practice with rich communication, among others, are critical to support typical development (Ramey and Ramey 1999). Exposure to these experiences cultivates school readiness, which in turn supports children's later achievement. The same holds true for CT. Exposing children to different kinds of CT-oriented problem-solving ideas and strategies, paired with thoughtful guidance, will allow preschool-aged children to practice CT over a wide variety of contexts. Kinder Koder was started in 2020 with the aim of teaching CT to preschoolers through unplugged games and activities. This paper shares how CT is being taught in Kinder Koder's enrichment classes in Singapore by using a framework more suited for early childhood education. This will help preschool teacher's integrate teaching CT in their day to day classrooms.

Computational Thinking in Language Arts When Teaching Creative and Expository Writing

Aysegul Bayraktar — 2022-06-10

In language arts instruction, computational thinking skills can be implemented through language arts activities, especially in teaching of diamante poems and expository writing. Instructional materials and activities for an elective language arts course lasting 14 weeks for two hours per week were prepared by the researcher. During the course, an invited speaker presented one instructional session for 23 pre-service elementary school teachers regarding the '˜Scratch Program' used to create digital stories. The following week another expert instructed computational thinking skills to these pre-service teachers about how to implement these skills into their language arts activities. Additionally, the researcher provided three hours and 30 minutes of instruction regarding poetry writing and 10 hours instruction on expository writing to increase the pre-service teachers' abstraction, separation, pattern recognition, logical reasoning, pattern decomposition, error detection, and algorithm design skills. Furthermore, the pre-service teachers were trained regarding various writing genres including creative writing. The pre-service teachers were later asked to submit a portfolio of their writing samples and the activities prepared specifically for developing elementary school students' computational thinking skills along with their reflective journals written regarding their experience of learning computational thinking skills. The pre-service teachers were not having or realizing any computational thinking skills in the beginning of the semester. Whereas when the semester ended, their reflective journals and written samples from portfolios showed they had become knowledgeable about computational thinking skills as well as strategies and/or activities used to increase their future students' computational thinking skills.

Exploring Embedded Computational Thinking in STEM Teacher Education

Dorrith PENNINK — 2022-06-10

Computational thinking (CT) has become a necessity in many professional domains. As such, scholars argue that the acquisition of CT and application should be embedded in existing school subjects. Within the CT literature, a tax-onomy distinguishes CT practices in STEM education into four categories: data related, systems thinking, modeling & simulation and computational problem solving (CPSP). Practical applications of these different categories are still limited. This paper presents three examples in which edu-cators of science teachers integrate CT within STEM con-tent knowledge using the above mentioned taxonomy. The first example applies to CPSP and data practices, the sec-ond to CPSP exclusively, the final to systems thinking and modeling & simulation. The examples provide practical insight that makes the use of CT in STEM education more tangible for practitioners.