Infusing Computing: Analyzing Teacher Programming Products in K-12 Computational Thinking Professional Development

ABSTRACT

In summer 2018, we conducted two week-long professional development workshops for 116 middle and high school teachers interested in infusing computational thinking (CT) into their classrooms. Teachers learned to program in Snap!, connect CT to their disciplines, and create infused CT learning segments for their classes. This paper investigates the extent to which teachers were able to successfully infuse CT skills of pattern recognition, abstraction, decomposition, and algorithms into their learning products.

In this work, we analyzed 58 teacher-designed programming products to look for common characteristics, such as project type, intended coding requirements for their students, and code features/functionality. Teacher-created products were classified into five types: animation, interactive story, quiz, intended game, and simulation/exploration tools. Coding requirements varied from using and/or explaining provided code, modifying existing code, programming with starter code, to building entire programs. Products were classified according to the extent to which they involved sprite manipulation, questions/answers, event handling, drawing, and control blocks. We found that teachers from different disciplines created products that vary in type, coding requirements, and features to suit their specific needs. Moreover, we found relationships between discipline, project type, and the required coding teachers expected students to do.

Our results inform future Infusing Computing Professional Development (PD) to provide more targeted training to support different teacher needs.

References

1. Joel C Adams and Andrew R Webster. 2012. What do students learn about programming from game, music video, and storytelling projects?. In Proceedings of the 43rd ACM technical symposium on Computer Science Education. ACM, 643--648.
2. Charoula Angeli, Joke Voogt, Andrew Fluck, Mary Webb, Margaret Cox, Joyce Malyn-Smith, and Jason Zagami. 2016. A K-6 computational thinking curriculum framework: Implications for teacher knowledge. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, Vol. 19, 3 (2016).
3. Valerie Barr and Chris Stephenson. 2011. Bringing computational thinking to K-12: what is Involved and what is the role of the computer science education community? Acm Inroads, Vol. 2, 1 (2011), 48--54.
4. Tim Bell, Jason Alexander, Isaac Freeman, and Mick Grimley. 2009. Computer science unplugged: School students doing real computing without computers. The New Zealand Journal of Applied Computing and Information Technology, Vol. 13, 1 (2009), 20--29.
5. Alexandra Funke, Katharina Geldreich, and Peter Hubwieser. 2017. Analysis of scratch projects of an introductory programming course for primary school students. In Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 2017 IEEE. IEEE, 1229--1236.
6. Dan Garcia, Brian Harvey, and Tiffany Barnes. 2015. The beauty and joy of computing. ACM Inroads, Vol. 6, 4 (2015), 71--79.
7. Shuchi Grover, Satabdi Basu, and Patricia Schank. 2018. What We Can Learn About Student Learning From Open-Ended Programming Projects in Middle School Computer Science. In Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. ACM, 999--1004.
8. Shuchi Grover and Roy Pea. 2013. Computational thinking in K--12: A review of the state of the field. Educational Researcher, Vol. 42, 1 (2013), 38--43.
9. Author Hidden. XXXX. Hidden Paper. In Anonymous .
10. Irene Lee, Fred Martin, Jill Denner, Bob Coulter, Walter Allan, Jeri Erickson, Joyce Malyn-Smith, and Linda Werner. 2011. Computational thinking for youth in practice. Acm Inroads, Vol. 2, 1 (2011), 32--37.
11. Mar'ia Cecilia Martinez, Marcos J. Gomez, Marco Moresi, and Luciana Benotti. 2016. Lessons Learned on Computer Science Teachers Professional Development. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE '16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 77--82.
12. Jesús Moreno-León and Gregorio Robles. 2015. Dr. Scratch: A web tool to automatically evaluate Scratch projects. In Proceedings of the workshop in primary and secondary computing education. ACM, 132--133.
13. Jennifer Rosato, Chery Lucarelli, Cassandra Beckworth, and Ralph Morelli. 2017. A Comparison of Online and Hybrid Professional Development for CS Principles Teachers. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 140--145.
14. Lee S Shulman and Judith H Shulman. 2004. How and what teachers learn: A shifting perspective. Journal of curriculum studies, Vol. 36, 2 (2004), 257--271.
15. David Weintrop, Elham Beheshti, Michael Horn, Kai Orton, Kemi Jona, Laura Trouille, and Uri Wilensky. 2016. Defining computational thinking for mathematics and science classrooms. Journal of Science Education and Technology, Vol. 25, 1 (2016), 127--147.
16. David Weintrop, Alexandria K Hansen, Danielle B Harlow, and Diana Franklin. 2018. Starting from Scratch: Outcomes of early computer science learning experiences and implications for what comes next. In Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research. ACM, 142--150.
17. Aman Yadav, Hai Hong, and Chris Stephenson. 2016. Computational thinking for all: pedagogical approaches to embedding 21st century problem solving in K-12 classrooms. TechTrends, Vol. 60, 6 (2016), 565--568.
18. Aman Yadav, Chris Mayfield, Ninger Zhou, Susanne Hambrusch, and John T Korb. 2014. Computational thinking in elementary and secondary teacher education. ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE), Vol. 14, 1 (2014), 5.

Index Terms

• Social and professional topics

  • Professional topics

    • Computing education

      • Computational thinking

      • K-12 education