Integrating computational thinking across the K--8 curriculum

Lee, Irene; Martin, Fred; Apone, Katie

doi:10.1145/2684721.2684736

Cited by 113 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Then again, the situation seems to slowly change, as in many countries and across all levels of education, the curriculum now includes the teaching of programming in a more systematic way (e.g., Grgurina, Barendsen, Zwaneveld, van Veen, & Stoker, 2014;Grout & Houlden, 2014;Lee, Martin, & Apone, 2014). Alas, this does not hold true for the Greek educational system.…”

Section: Programming As a Teaching/learning Subjectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Students Learning to Program by Developing Games: Results of a Year-long Project in Primary School Settings

Fokides¹

2017

JITE:Research

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Aim/PurposeThe purpose of this study was to examine whether the authoring of computer games in a mainstream primary school setting can support the learning of game design and programming concepts. Background Despite the benefits for students when they learn how to program and the significant body of research regarding this matter, these benefits are still under debate, and the teaching of programming has a relatively undeveloped pedagogy. With this in mind, a project was designed and implemented, having constructionism as its theoretical framework. Also, Microsoft's Kodu Game Lab was used for the development of students' games. MethodologyThe project lasted for almost a school year (fifty two-hour sessions) and the target group was fifth-grade students (ages 10-11). A total of 138 students participated, coming from five schools in Athens, Greece. Students were divided into three groups. While all groups worked in pairs, to the first there was no teachers' guidance, to the second there was limited teachers' guidance, and to the third, a combination of teacher-led and pair work was used. Each group developed three games of escalating complexity and a total of 207 games were analyzed. Data were collected by analyzing students' games and with a short questionnaire. ContributionThe study contributes to the debate surrounding the pedagogy of computer game authoring as a tool for teaching programming. That is because few studies have examined the above in mainstream settings, having as a target group primary school students. Furthermore, the present study is in contrast to most studies which involved intensive research projects, since it lasted for almost a school year. Learning to Program by Developing Games 476Findings It was found that the most commonly used programming concept was conditions, followed by variables and loops, while Boolean logic and functions were the least used ones. The most problematic concepts proved to be Boolean logic and loops, closely followed by functions. The least problematic concepts were conditions and variables. Also, the number of programming concepts that were used was increasing in each game, while the errors were decreasing. All in all, students' final games fall into the relational level according to a modified version of the SOLO taxonomy.While the findings indicated that, as well as learning some basic programming concepts, students enjoyed the activity and demonstrated positive attitudes to learning programming by developing games; it was also found that the teaching method did not have any effect on the learning outcomes nor in their views for game authoring. Recommendations for PractitionersExtended projects can be considered for teaching programming to primary school students, using visual programming tools that allow the development of games. The classes' teachers can undertake the task to teach programming if they are properly trained. The SOLO taxonomy can be used for assessing students' games. Future ResearchFuture studies can examine a variety of game-like prog...

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Section: Programming As a Teaching/learning Subjectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Students Learning to Program by Developing Games: Results of a Year-long Project in Primary School Settings

Fokides¹

2017

JITE:Research

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“…Among other contributions coming from educators, Lee et al [60] identify abstraction, automation and analysis as the key features in order for young pupils to deal with novel problems. They then suggest three possible approaches to introduce CT for the K-8 levels.…”

Section: Cs At K-9 Levelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concepts in K-9 Computer Science Education

Barendsen

Mannila

Demo

et al. 2015

Proceedings of the 2015 ITiCSE on Working Group Reports

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This exploratory study focuses on concepts and their assessment in K-9 computer science (CS) education. We analyzed concepts in local curriculum documents and guidelines, as well as interviewed K-9 teachers in two countries about their teaching and assessment practices. Moreover, we investigated the 'task based assessment' approach of the international Bebras contest by classifying the conceptual content and question structure of Bebras tasks spanning five years. Our results show a variety in breadth and focus in curriculum documents, with the notion of algorithm as a significant common concept. Teachers' practice appears to vary, depending on their respective backgrounds. Informal assessment practices are predominant, especially in the case of younger students. In the Bebras tasks, algorithms and data representation were found to be the main concept categories. The question structure follows specific patterns, but the relative frequencies of the patterns employed in the tasks vary over the years. Our analysis methods appear to be interesting in themselves, and the results of our study give rise to suggestions for follow-up research.

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“…Bargury et al, 2012;Bers, Flannery, Kazakoff, & Sullivan, 2014;Grgurina, Barendsen, Zwaneveld, van Veen, & Stoker, 2014;Grout & Houlden, 2014;Jones, 2013;Kalelioglu, Gülbahar, Akçay, & Dogan, 2014;Lee, Martin, & Apone, 2014;Repenning, Webb, & Ioannidou, 2010). There are many emerging applications that can be used to teach students computer science, robotics programming, and drag and drop blocks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%