Using scalable game design to teach computer science from middle school to graduate school

How can learning be computed? Curriculum, using visual language as the motivational context with embedded computer science content was utilized in one college computer science class and two middle school technology classes. From the data collected in these three classes over the course of a semester, associated learning progressions were computed from several computational thinking patterns. By comparing the results (learning progressions), some obvious and some not so obvious indications emerged. We believe that the more obvious indications give credence to the less obvious, and hence the measurement tool. This comparison between middle school students and college students demonstrated that middle school students' learning progressions are slower than college level students (obvious), but middle school students' learning skill scores reached/surpassed the entry level scores of students in the college class after designing only two or more games. Consequently, these results tell us that this measurement tool although not validated yet, could measure accumulated learning in certain contexts. Although this is just the first "outing" of this tool these results strongly indicate that the tool provides an accurate measure of the concept, in this case, learning accumulation or transfer. The Scalable Game Design (SGD) project was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to improve computer science interest in middle schools. The goal of SGD is to use visual language programming software (Agentsheets) to introduce a more positive image of computer science through a game design course.

The goal of the DISSECT program is to integrate computational thinking lessons into general education K-12 classrooms via graduate student/teacher partnerships. The idea of combining the teaching of CT with other disciplines is not new and it has taken shape in a variety of recent efforts in the formal education of youth. What is promising and innovative is the approach as it is implemented in K12 DISSECT classrooms. Through a collaborative teaching partnership, teachers gain a new perspective regarding computer science, and in cooperation with graduate students well-versed in computer science concepts, develop lessons and course modules that serve two purposes: 1.) Address K-12 content standards in core disciplines (e.g., language arts, life science) and 2.) Introduce CT concepts, such as abstraction, algorithms, data analysis and modeling. This poster describes ways computational thinking (CT) is taught in general K-12 classrooms in New Mexico through cooperative teaching. Along with their potential to stimulate interest in computing, these pilot modules were viewed by K12 teachers as enhancing disciplinary course content that teachers are charged with teaching (e.g., middle school science, language arts), deemed vital for sustainability in K12 schools by participating teachers. Preliminary data indicate graduate student and teacher satisfaction with cooperative teaching of CT. Next steps for research will involve student level data collection and analysis.

Computational Thinking has been recognized as an essential skill to be developed in individuals of the 21st Century. Various initiatives worldwide have been proposed to establish the most effective educational strategies and resources to support the development of these skills. With the publication of the Standards for Computing in Basic Education in Brazil (Complement to the National Base Common Curricular), Computer Science is expected to be taught as a fundamental science from Early Childhood Education to High School. In this context, this study presents the results of the students’ learning and the usability evaluation of the ThinkCarpet: an interactive educational robotics artifact built using alternative materials and Arduino, with the purpose of aiding in the development of the concept of algorithms in students from Middle School. Regarding the students’ learning, an average of 93.75% of valid solutions was observed for the algorithms validated through the use of the ThinkCarpet. In contrast, only 62% of valid solutions were identified in activities outside the proposed resource. As for the results of the application of the System Usability Scale (SUS), the results show a score of 83.59, which classifies the ThinkCarpet as excellent in a realistic scenario.

Computational thinking has become a interesting subject and important concept in education throughout the nation. Computational Thinking (CT) has been defined as an important skill as digital literacy that must be learned by next generation. Along with the need to make an agreed definition of CT many countries are still in the process of, or have not started, introducing CT into the curriculum at all levels of education. It was also found in Indonesia that Computer Science / Computing, which could be the most obvious place to teach CT, has not been the main subject in several schools. This research aim is to design an alternative CT learning media to study interestingly and effectively computational concept which consists of 4 elements, namely decomposition, abstraction, pattern recognition and algorithm. Research and Development followed by ADDIE development model (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation) is used to capture the problem, identify the user need to be implemented in digital media. This learning media application product is equipped with an educational game based on computational thinking. The media has several features such as presentation of material and examples of problems and the solution, and small challenges in a games consisting of 3 stages. The subjects of this study were students of K-12. The data used for analysis was collected in several ways, including observation, questionnaire, pre-test and post-test in similar question. The result is the use of CT learning media is very helpful to improve students' understanding of CT in problem solving even in different topics.

Coding is increasingly popular in schools around the world and is often taught by non-specialist teachers as an integrated task with other subject areas. In this article, we explore the relationship between computer science (CS) concepts and students’ multimodal expression in a coding animated narrative (CAN) task in the context of an integrated English-Technology unit of learning. Through this collective case study, we explore how CS concepts underpin semiotic elements of an animated narrative, analyse the factors that influence the extent to which students exercise those concepts, and reveal the tensions and opportunities that a CAN task may present for learning computer science concepts in regular, non-specialist, cross-curricular classrooms. The findings suggest that CAN tasks are unique in presenting opportunities for students to learn challenging CS concepts such as synchronisation and parallelism. At the same time, CAN tasks present tensions for teaching CS concepts in non-specialist classrooms, where student projects are often judged on their visual qualities. In such settings, procedural, rather than conceptual knowledge, may be a more efficient route to creative outcomes. It also means that drawing skills need to be prioritised. Role specialisation often led to better quality projects but at the expense of individual students’ conceptual development in computer science.

A guide for educators to incorporate computational thinking—a set of cognitive skills applied to problem solving—into a broad range of subjects. Computational thinking—a set of mental and cognitive tools applied to problem solving—is a fundamental skill that all of us (and not just computer scientists) draw on. Educators have found that computational thinking enhances learning across a range of subjects and reinforces students' abilities in reading, writing, and arithmetic. This book offers a guide for incorporating computational thinking into middle school and high school classrooms, presenting a series of activities, projects, and tasks that employ a range of pedagogical practices and cross a variety of content areas. As students problem solve, communicate, persevere, work as a team, and learn from mistakes, they develop a concrete understanding of the abstract principles used in computer science to create code and other digital artifacts. The book guides students and teachers to integrate computer programming with visual art and geometry, generating abstract expressionist–style images; construct topological graphs that represent the relationships between characters in such literary works as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Romeo and Juliet; apply Newtonian physics to the creation of computer games; and locate, analyze, and present empirical data relevant to social and political issues. Finally, the book lists a variety of classroom resources, including the programming languages Scratch (free to all) and Codesters (free to teachers). An accompanying website contains the executable programs used in the book's activities. The open access edition of this book was made possible by generous funding from Arcadia – a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin.

Computational thinking and computer science are instrumental in learning how to creatively solve problems and develop thought out solutions. Over the years, workshops have been held to provide high school teachers the ability to teach high school students computer science, however not much has been done for middle school teachers. Funded by Google, the three day CS Educator Professional Development Workshop for Middle School Teachers at Kean University brought together teachers to learn about key computer science concepts and work with tools that were previously not known to them, such as Scratch, the Makey Makey tool kit, and the Cue robot. The results of this research find that middle school teachers need access to curriculum materials and digital tools in order to successfully teach computer science to their students. Furthermore, more work should be done to get middle school teachers access to materials and lesson plans aimed at teaching middle school students.

The Adventures in Alice Programming project at Duke University has created a variety of Alice curriculum materials for integrating computer science into other disciplines at the K-12 level, focusing on both computer science topics and animation topics. For example, one of our new animation tutorials shows how to attach multiple camera views to an object to move with the object through a virtual Alice world. Our newest curriculum materials focus on integrating computer science into middle school mathematics. Our math related tutorials guide users on programming math projects from scratch, and our math challenges are partially built programs for students to complete. We use topics that are attractive to middle school students. For example, we have created a wizard world math and programming challenge that is an eight-level game. Each level in the game is titled similarly to courses one might take in the school Hogwarts in the Harry Potter book series by J.K. Rowling. Students must add code related to either a math or computer science concept in order to complete a level and move to the next level. Since 2008, we have taught extensive multi-week Alice beginner workshops every summer to K-12 teachers, teaching over 200 teachers. Our new curriculum materials are mapped to both the CSTA and the Common Core Math standards, and are available for free at www.cs.duke.edu/csed/alice/aliceInSchools along with teacher lesson plans.

The rapid rate of the development of computer technology raises the issue of how to reform Computer Science education in elementary and middle schools. In Korea the government has taken this issue seriously, and the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development has announced substantial revisions to its computing curricula, leading to a new curriculum in Informatics to be introduced for middle schools in 2010, and for high schools in 2011. There is a proposal that the elementary school curriculum will be linked to these, and with a stronger focus on not just learning how to operate computers and software, but understanding the methods and algorithms behind Computer Science. Research on identifying effective teaching methods for CS topics at the elementary level is critical at the moment, as the content of the developing curriculum will be influenced by information about which topics are able to be taught effectively at this level. We are particularly interested to establish how these topics can be covered effectively without having to reduce them to a comfortable re-working of the status quo driven by a lack of background on teaching these new topics. Hence it is important to have experience with teaching such topics so that they can be considered for widespread use in the curriculum. As in most countries, Korean elementary school teachers are generalists, and therefore the Informatics curriculum needs to be presented in a way that a generalist can engage with it, as well as engage their students. One approach that avoids the difficulties and distraction of computers in the elementary school classroom is the use of offline activities: activities that work with Computer Science concepts, but are not done at the computer. These aim to educate students about abstract and challenging concepts behind algorithms, but without using a computer. It is our belief that computer science fundamentals can be taught without the help of computers; many key concepts predate the modern computer, and many demonstrations are available for a wide range of concepts. Currently the existing work on offline activities is not directly aimed at teaching CS to elementary-age children. Much of the published work is aimed primarily at tertiary level students, and is generally intended for motivated students in a university classroom. Most of the kinesthetic material developed for elementary school material is aimed at enthusing students about CS; they explicitly do not presume to teach ideas , but simply inform students about the kind of thinking and problem solving that is required for CS, and therefore make students better informed about choosing a career in the field. In particular, assessment is an important component of teaching, and current resources are not strong in this area. With the opportunity for CS topics to be taught to students, we have experimented with using kinesthetic approaches in the classroom. In addition to needing to provide assessment, we have identified that a particular issue is that elementary level teachers are usually non-specialists, and we report on work to enable such teachers to adopt CS teaching material effectively. An important component of this is providing background information about how the topic is used in practice. The poster summarises our experiences and feedback from teachers in making this material accessible for elementary school students.

Computational thinking (CT), which encompasses strategies for problem analysis and solution design, is highly applicable in all STEM disciplines, including computer science, for learning concepts as well as solving problems. Yet, the exposure of K-12 students to CT in many schools is practically non-existent. For students to acquire this important skill, teachers require in-depth knowledge of the problem solving strategies that define CT, and strategies for integrating CT into their lesson plans. The proposed special session will be both a tutorial on CT and an interactive session for sharing the experience and results from a CT workshop held at Columbus State University for middle and high school STEM subject teachers. This workshop, offered as a part of the ACT4STEM (Applying Computational Thinking for STEM Disciplines) project, took place in the summer of 2015. It brought together teachers from the metropolitan Columbus area in Georgia with priority given to teachers from high-need schools (as determined by the GA Department of Education [1]). The workshop introduced the participants to CT concepts and demonstrated how CT strategies of pattern recognition, generalization, problem decomposition and algorithmic thinking can be used to improve student learning of STEM concepts. The proposed special session will present sample CT modules developed for the ACT4STEM workshop in the form of a tutorial and projects and lesson plans designed by participants during the workshop. It will include interactive, hands-on activities and discussions in addition to results from the teachers' actual experiences on applying these lesson plans in their classes. This special session will benefit K12 teachers of STEM subjects interested in improving their students' comprehension of discipline related concepts and their application. Moreover, computer science faculty interested in helping K-12 teachers by organizing training sessions will gain valuable insights from the first-hand accounts of the presenters of their own experience with such an effort.

This study compares computational thinking skills evidenced by two groups of students in two different secondary schools: one group per school was studying a qualification in Computer Science. The aim was to establish which elements of computational thinking were more prevalent in students studying Computer Science to a higher level. This in turn would evidence those elements likely to be present from their earlier computing education or through their complementary studies in Science or Mathematics, which all students also studied. Understanding this difference was important to identify any increased competence in computational thinking that was present in the Computer Science groups. Artefact-based interviews were carried out using questions and practical computing problems designed to elicit and demonstrate the students’ computational thinking skills based on the Brennan and Resnick (2016) model of computational concepts, practices and perspectives. Analysis of students’ responses showed surprisingly little difference between the computational thinking practices of the two groups in relation to abstraction, decomposition, evaluation, generalisation/reusing, logical reasoning and debugging/testing. The study concludes that general computational thinking skills can be developed either at a lower level of study or in cognate curriculum areas, leaving computer science as the rightful locus of computational thinking for automation.

We live in a century where technology has become part of our lives, and it is crucial that we become active creators of technology, not just passive users. Learning to program computers enables a person to create twenty-first-century solutions. Computer programming is more than just learning how to code; it also exposes students to the opportunity to develop computational thinking (CT), which involves problem-solving using computer science concepts. In this chapter, we explore strengths and weaknesses of students’ CT skills and compare a group of seventh- and eighth-grade students who engaged in a Scratch programming environment. Scratch is a popular visual programming language that introduces computer programming to youth. We use Dr. Scratch, a CT assessment tool, to analyze students’ Scratch projects for evidence of CT. The results of this study can show researchers and educators how they might use Dr. Scratch to analyze students’ Scratch data to help improve their CT.

The important role of Computational Thinking in the learning process has encouraged many studies that use this concept as a key variable.The aim of this research is to analyze publication trends as well as the novelty of keywords related to Computational Thinking.Using software such as RStudio and VOSviewer, analysis was carried out on 243 documents collected from Scopus based on relevant keywords.From the analysis results, it can be concluded that there were only 31 articles published on the topic of Computational Thinking in Schools between 2008 and 2016, but that number more than sevenfold increased to 209 publications between 2017 and 2022.Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics) (SJR 2022 = 0.32) is the source with the highest h-index.English (2017) research on STEM education in elementary and middle schools is the most influential based on number of citations.From the results interpreted with VOSviewer, there are seven color clusters for Computational Thinking research with various research focuses.By looking at the overlay visualization, research on early childhood education has not directly involved other variables such as integration, systematic review, motivation, and relationships.Thus, this is a gap that can enable researchers in this field to carry out further research.

Review on teaching and learning of computational thinking through programming: What is next for K-12?

This study investigates the integration of Computational Thinking (CT) into STEAM education, particularly focusing on Mathematics and Professional Development (PD) for educators. Through a systematic review conducted across several databases, we analyzed 40 articles on the current state of Professional Development in CT within STEAM subjects, emphasizing definitions and their integration into existing curricula. We focused on scientific papers that examined the relationship between the studied concepts (CT, Computer Science - CS, and Math), excluding those that solely focused on CT or CS. We applied a dual review protocol to ensure accuracy and reduce the risk of bias. Our findings reveal a strong emphasis (82.5%) on curriculum integration. Interestingly, pre-service and in-service teachers are disproportionately targeted, while university-level training remains limited (5%). Additionally, a growing trend highlights an interest in exploring the synergy between Computer Science and CT and underscores CT PD’s infancy within STEAM education. Furthermore, the study identifies a surprising need for increased reference (25%) to pioneering figures like Papert and Wing in the existing literature. The methodology employs keyword analysis and the Jaccard index to measure concept similarity. This study uniquely focuses on studying the reported transfer of CT knowledge and definition in the context of PD. It offers a new perspective on the reported envisioned relationship between CT and CS when preparing and delivering PD. It also identifies gaps, preferences in teacher training, and opportunities for enhancing CT integration in STEAM education. It emphasizes the need for improved Professional Development and clearer definitions to effectively integrate CT into STEAM education, particularly at the university level, and provides recommendations for both educators and policymakers.