Exploring Students' Computational Thinking Skills in Modeling and Simulation Projects

Abstract

Computational Thinking (CT) is gaining a lot of attention in education. We explored how to discern the occurrences of CT in the projects of 12 th grade high school students in the computer science (CS) course. Within the projects, they constructed models and ran simulations of phenomena from other (STEM) disciplines. We examined which CT aspects occurred in students' activities and how to assess students' CT accomplishments. For this purpose we employed a framework based on CT characterizations by Wing [14, 15], CSTA [4] and Comer et al. [3]. We analyzed students' project documentation, survey results and interviews with individual students. The findings indicate that this framework is suitable for detection of occurrences of CT aspects in students' data. Moreover, our preliminary results suggest that the framework is useful in assessment of the quality of the students' CT performance.

The Second Decade of Informatics in Dutch Secondary Education

“…Following Magnusson et al [20], we distinguish four elements of content-specific pedagogy: (M1) goals and objectives, (M2) students' understanding and difficulties, (M3) instructional strategies, and (M4) assessment. First, we refined the CSTA definition of computational thinking (CT) [14], made initial explorations of teachers' PCK [15,16], and of the computational modeling process [13]. We then obtained an operational description of the intended learning outcomes of the learning objectives of Computational science-thus focusing on Magnusson's element M1, observed students working on modeling tasks-focusing on Magnusson's element M2, established what data sources were suitable for assessment-Magnusson's element M4 [17], investigated teachers' initial pedagogical content knowledge on modeling and simulation [12], and finally, explored the characteristics of the assessment instrument for the measurement of the intended learning outcomes for computational science [10].…”

A double dissociative study into the effectiveness of computational thinking

“…Effective interventions based on CT have the potential to contribute to the development of more effective problem-solvers and will have an impact beyond Higher Education because similar interventions can be applied to primary and secondary education (Grgurina et al 2015) as well. Our studies are timely aligned with recent policy initiatives that have been designed to improve computing education.…”

Assessment of modeling and simulation in secondary computing science education

“…Following Magnusson et al [23], we distinguish four elements of content-specific pedagogy: (M1) goals and objectives, (M2) students' understanding and difficulties, (M3) instructional strategies, and (M4) assessment. Previously, we refined the CSTA definition of computational thinking (CT) [14], made initial explorations of teachers' PCK [15,16] and of the computational modeling process [13], obtained an operational description of the intended learning outcomes (ILO) of the learning objective Computational science -thus focusing on Magnusson's element M1, observed students working on modeling tasks -focusing on Magnusson's element M2, established what data sources were suitable for assessment -Magnusson's element M4 [17], investigated teachers' initial pedagogical content knowledge on modeling and simulation [11], and finally, proposed an assessment instrument [12] -Magnusson's element M4.…”