Examining Young Children's Computational Artifacts

Abstract

Computational thinking (CT), in line with the constructionist perspective, is often best displayed when children have the opportunity to demonstrate their skills by producing creative coding artifacts. Performance-based or project portfolio assessments of young children's coding artifacts are a rich and useful approach to explore how children develop and apply CT abilities. In this chapter, the authors examine various rubrics and assessment tools used to measure the levels of programming competency, creativity, and purposefulness displayed in students' coding artifacts. The authors then discuss the development of ScratchJr and KIBO project rubrics for researchers and educators, including examples to illustrate how these highly diverse projects provide insight into children's CT abilities. Finally, the authors conclude with implications and practical strategies for using rubrics in both educational and research settings.

El desarrollo de Scratch-Jr: el aprendizaje de programación en primera infancia como nueva alfabetización

“…Tabla 1: Las siete ideas poderosas, conceptos asociados y ejemplos del currículum AL-ScratchJr Mientras el contenido está organizado en base a las siete ideas poderosas de las Ciencias de la Computación, se tienden conexiones explícitas en cada unidad con la alfabetización en la primera infancia (ej: el proceso de escritura, rememorar, sintetizar y secuenciar, uso de lenguaje descriptivo e ilustrativo, reconocimiento de recurso de estilo como la repetición y la anticipación y el uso de estrategias de lectura tales como la predicción, el resumen y la evaluación) (Bers, 2018;2019b;2020a;Papert, 1980;Vee, 2017;Unahalekhaka & Govind, 2021) A lo largo de las lecciones CAL, cada aspecto curricular se utiliza para vincular con otro (Strawhacker & Bers, 2019). Por ejemplo, cuando los niños y niñas se enfrentan al pensamiento algorítmico, también exploran secuenciamiento y narración de historias.…”

The state of the field of computational thinking in early childhood education

“…Both rubrics evaluate programming concepts and design aspects to capture children's ability to transform their creative ideas into animated coding projects. Some of the rubrics' subcategories for programming concepts including repeat, events, coordination, and number parameters align with CT concepts such as flow control, logical thinking, synchronisation, and data representation (Unahalekhaka and Bers, 2022 [222]). Studies looking at the evaluation of children's projects using the ScratchJr Project Rubric and the KIBO Project Rubric show that both assessment tools have good reliability and validity properties (Unahalekhaka and Bers, 2022 [222]) (Govind and Bers, 2021[223]) (Callanan, Cervantes and Loomis, 2011[224]).…”