Teacher observations of programming affordances for K-12 mathematics and technology

Abstract

With future shortage of professionals with programming and computing skills, many countries have made programming part of kindergarten – grade 12 curriculum (K-12). A possible approach is to make programming part of an already existing subject. Sweden has chosen this approach and in 2017 programming was integrated in the subject content of K-12 mathematics and technology. Integrating programming is at the expense of extra workload on teachers. Teachers affected by these changes will face new challenges in their teaching and learning activities. The aim of the study is to examine K-12 teachers’ use and perceived affordances of programming as a tool for teaching and learning activities in mathematics and technology. Data were collected through focus group discussions with three teacher teams in mathematics and technology from three K-12 schools in the mid Sweden region. 21 teachers participated in the study. Thematic analysis with a mixture of deductive and inductive coding were used to analyse the data. Theory of affordances was used to structure findings in themes of interests and answer the study’s aim and research questions. Results show that the teachers use a variety of programming tools in their teaching and learning activities. The use of programming in mathematics and technology can be understood in five main perceived affordances: 1) Play, 2) Discovery, 3) Adaptation, 4) Control, and 5) Freedom; which relate to both student motivation and subject content. Teachers also perceive obstacles and opportunities in using programming, that relates to different programming tools’ ability to support teaching and learning activities. The findings of this study can be drawn upon by teachers and other stakeholders in the integration of programming in K-12 education, and in the design of teaching and learning activities with programming.

A conceptual model of what programming affords secondary school courses in mathematics and technology

“…But it was also mentioned that textual programming can be perceived as overwhelming and could therefore limit creativity. This can be related to findings in previous research, which have highlighted that teachers did not feel sufficiently prepared for the integration of programming in course content and perceived a lack of time and directives for the integration (Humble, 2022;Humble et al, 2020;Vinnervik, 2022). Block programming and Scratch is mentioned in both this study and previous research as a good approach for drawing on complex cognitive practice in programming, while still limit syntactic challenges (Fagerlund et al, 2021;Maloney et al, 2010).…”

“…This is addressed related to perceived affordances of fun, curiosity, and play. That programming is perceived as fun by teachers has also been addressed in related research (Humble, 2022;Humble et al, 2020). Previous research also shows that game element and gamification in programming have positive effects on students' motivation (Fotaris et al, 2016;Pilkington, 2018).…”

“…Previous research on the integration of programming in Swedish primary and secondary school courses of Mathematics and Technology have highlighted different potential relationships between programming and course content (Kilhamn et al, 2021). It has further been highlighted that teachers did not feel sufficiently prepared for the integration (Vinnervik, 2022) and that programming is often perceived as fun by teachers but that there is a lack of time and directives for the integration that can be challenging (Humble, 2022;Humble et al, 2020).…”

“…Since the integration of programming technologies are still being conducted in many countries' K-12 education, where Sweden is one of them, the need for research that study the use, possibilities and challenges of programming is still crucial. Previous research show that teachers need guidance for the use and integration of programming in K-12 education, this includes support for teaching programming and using programming as a tool for teaching and learning in other courses (Humble, 2022;Humble et al, 2020;Pörn et al, 2021;Szabo et al, 2019;Humble et al, 2019;Webb et al, 2017;Royal Society, 2017). In Sweden, these courses are mainly the two courses of Mathematics and Technology.…”

Online Methods in Thematic Learning: Application of Constraints and Solutions

“…The application of online methods can be applied to learning, one of which is thematic learning (Hudzaifah et al, 2021). Thematic learning is integrated learning that uses themes to relate several subjects (Humble, 2021) . So that it can provide meaningful experiences to students, meaning students can understand the concepts learned through direct and real experience that connects the concepts in a subject.…”