Teaching Computational Thinking Using Agile Software Engineering Methods

Abstract

Computational Thinking (CT) has been recognized as one of the fundamental skills that all graduates should acquire. For this reason, motivational concerns need to be addressed at an early age of a child, and reaching students who do not consider themselves candidates for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines is important as well if the broadest audience possible is to be engaged. This article describes a framework for teaching and assessing CT in the context of K-12 education. The framework is based on Agile software engineering methods, which rely on a set of principles and practices that can be mapped to the activities of CT. The article presents as well the results of an experiment applying this framework in two sixth-grade classes, with 42 participants in total. The results show that Agile software engineering methods are effective at teaching CT in middle schools, after the addition of some tasks to allow students to explore, project, and experience the potential product before using the software tools at hand. Moreover, according to the teachers’ feedback, the students reached all the educational objectives of the topics involved in the multidisciplinary activities. This result can be taken as an indicator that it is possible to use computing as a medium for teaching other subjects, besides computer science.

Review of measurements used in computing education research and suggestions for increasing standardization

“…Carter et al (2015) developed the Normalized Programming State Model to account for 41% of the variance in programming students' assignment grades and 26% of the variance in their final course grade. Fronza, Ioini, andCorral (2017) used McCabe's (1976) procedure to calculate cyclomatic complexity. Looking to the future, the field could greatly benefit from partially standardized practices for analyzing log data.…”

A Model for Developing Computational Thinking Skills

“…As Brennan and Resnick support the usage of Scratch as a tool for creating projects to develop CT, the focus is on project analysis. This type of analysis highlighted the new dimensions of iteration and reuse to be used in coding project analysis in several articles (Lye et al, 2014, Vallance and Towndrow, 2016, Zhong et al, 2016, Fronza et al, 2017.…”

Game-based collaborative learning framework for computational thinking development

“…They conducted a PP experiment in four classes in the sixth grade in a primary school and used Alice, an environment to build Games and Animations. An agile software engineering framework that relies on a set of principles and practices that can be mapped to the activities of CT is presented by [20]. The framework focuses on building games and animations through the design of mind maps and storyboards, and Scratch programming.…”