Computational thinking curriculum development for upper elementary school classes

Abstract

As computer science plays an increasingly large role in our lives, it is important to also move it into our classrooms. Computer science careers are among the fastest growing jobs, yet large groups of the population are severely underrepresented in computer science. Elementary school is a key time to introduce computer science or computational thinking because students are capable of programming and they will soon be deciding whether they see a future in the sciences. Including computational thinking as a part of the elementary school general education would give all children an introduction to the subject. In addition, elementary schools are looking for computational thinking material. We need appropriate, research-based tools and curricula for them to use.Unlike the natural sciences, computer science's domain is pliable. Through language and programming environments, developers can create new ways to represent computational thinking concepts. My research seeks 1) to understand how 4 th through 6 th grade students learn computational thinking, 2) to develop computational thinking learning progressions and curricula, and 3) to create a language and programming environment suitable for elementary school classes and teachers who do not have a computer science background.

Student and teacher co-agency when combining CT with arts and design in a cross-curricular project

“…Mannila et al Studies on CT in K-12 education focus on a range of aspects. Curriculum design (e.g., [35,94]) and teaching approaches (e.g., [20,108]) are naturally central areas when introducing new content in education. Another common research topic focuses on the tools used, such as unplugged programming [5,10,17]), the programming environment Scratch (e.g., [25,64,103]), robotics (e.g., [2,13]) or microcontrollers (e. g., [27]).…”

Ferramentas para o Ensino-Aprendizagem do Pensamento Computacional: onde está Alan Turing?

“…O interesse da comunidade científica e dos governos de diversos países pelo ensino-aprendizagem do PC a partir da educação básica já está bem documentado em Groover e Pea (2013) e Mannila et al (2014). Ao mesmo tempo que grande parte da pesquisa [Andrade et al 2013;Ribeiro et al 2013;Carvalho et al 2013;Roscoe et al 2014;Campos et al 2014;França e Tedesco 2014;Hill 2014] encontra-se focada em metodologias e ferramentas para o ensino-aprendizagem do PC, outra [França e Amaral 2013;Gouws et al 2013;Koh et al 2014] busca instrumentos para avaliar os resultados da aprendizagem.…”

CodeSpells

“…This is meant to be a course that all high schoolers should be able to take to maintain or grow an interest in computer science, bridging the gap between middle school efforts and university/college classes. Though there is still much work to be done in this arena, it would be beneficial to have a pipeline from middle school through university/college and even more so to extend that pipeline into elementary school [34,20].…”