An analysis of young students' thinking when completing basic coding tasks using Scratch Jnr. On the iPad

Abstract

Recent government moves in many countries have seen coding included in school curricula, or promoted as part of computing, mathematics or science programmes. While these moves have generally been associated with a need to engage more young people in technology study, research has hinted at possible benefits from learning to program including fostering general thinking skills. However, little research has been carried out exploring these ideas. This study analysed data collected while 5-and 6-year-old students in a New Zealand primary school were using Scratch Jnr. to learn about basic shapes, as part of a numeracy topic. Analysis combined Brennan and Resnick's (2012) computational thinking skills framework and Krathwohl's (2002) revision of Bloom's Taxonomy to evaluate any role general thinking skills played in these students' coding work. Results suggest including basic coding in primary curricula provides teachers with an effective means of exercising their students' general and higher order thinking skills. They build on Brennan and Resnick's (2012) framework by including conceptualization as an important element in students' computational work and highlight the role of predictive thinking in debugging code. Findings support historical arguments that more needs to be done to investigate students' cognitive processes when undertaking computational work.

Development of computational thinking, digital competence and 21stcentury skills when learning programming in K-9

“…Secondly, their framework is considered as providing "a wide coverage of CT" (Kong, 2016, p. 379). Many curricula emphasize the learning of basic CT through mastering what Brennan and Resnick (2012) term "computational thinking concepts" (Falloon, 2016). Their framework has also been widely discussed and laid out as a basis for previous empirical and theoretical studies (e.g.…”

Apprendre à programmer un robot humanoïde : impacts sur des élèves de l’adaptation scolaire

“…Au Canada, où c' est le cas en Colombie-Britannique et en Nouvelle-Écosse, « coder à l' école » fait partie d'une plus vaste stratégie destinée à mieux préparer les jeunes pour l'avenir. Apprendre à coder revêt donc un intérêt particulier pour ces élèves (Falloon, 2016) qui vont pouvoir mieux comprendre le monde dans lequel ils vivent, mieux anticiper le futur et ce à quoi ils seront exposés afin, notamment, de mieux se préparer aux métiers de demain. Il s'agit donc d'une compétence forte pour les jeunes (OECD, 2015) d'autant plus que certaines recherches ont montré les avantages inhérents à l'apprentissage du code en éducation (Moreno León, Robles et Román-González, 2016).…”

From a student perspective, what constitutes a good (or less good) use of ICT in teaching?

“…Among other things, research on students has focused on their use and views of ICT in general (Olofsson et al 2018;Bulfin et al 2016) and of specific digital hardware, software or applications in particular (Duran and Aytaç 2016;Ott et al 2018;Towndrow and Fareed 2015;Räihä et al 2014). An increased research focus can also be seen on students' views of the 1-1 concept (Keane and Keane 2017;Spanos and Sofos 2015), mobile use (Gromik 2017), coding (An 2016;Falloon 2016) and the idea of a 'flipped classroom' (Hatakka et al 2013;Limniou et al 2018). However, as the interest in this paper is students' views of what constitutes good or less good teaching with ICT to support their learning, earlier studies only contribute limited knowledge, especially in a K-12 context.…”