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In order to create professional development experiences, curriculum materials, and policies that support elementary school teachers to embed computational thinking (CT) in their teaching, researchers and teacher educators must under- stand ways teachers see CT as connecting to their classroom practices. Taking the viewpoint that teachers’ initial ideas about CT can serve as useful resources on which to build ed- ucational experiences, we interviewed 12 elementary school teachers to probe their understanding of six components of CT (abstraction, algorithmic thinking, automation, debug- ging, decomposition, and generalization) and how those com- ponents relate to their math and science teaching. Results suggested that teachers saw stronger connections between CT and their mathematics instruction than between CT and their science instruction. We also found that teachers draw upon their existing knowledge of CT-related terminology to make connections to their math and science instruction that could be leveraged in professional development. Teachers were, however, concerned about bringing CT into teaching due to limited class time and the difficulties of addressing high level CT in developmentally appropriate ways. We discuss these results and their implications future research and the design of professional development, sharing examples of how we used teachers’ initial ideas as the foundation of a workshop introducing them to computational thinking.
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Integrating computational thinking in elementary classrooms: Introducing a toolkit to support teachers
Driven by the need for students to be prepared for a world driven by computation, a number of recent educational reforms in science and mathematics have called for computational thinking concepts to be integrated into these content areas. However, in order for computational thinking (CT) to permeate K-12 education, we need to educate teachers about what CT ideas are and how they relate to what happens in their classroom on a day-to-day basis. This paper presents a toolkit to scaffold elementary teachers’ understanding of computational thinking ideas and how to integrate them into their lesson plans.
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- PAR ID:
- 10095783
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Few studies of computational thinking (CT) integration in elementary curricula have yet focused on supporting early elementary educators with implementing and assessing their young students’ application of these practices to content area work. This paper summarizes a collaborative research project that engaged researchers, K-second grade teachers, and professional development (PD) providers in implementing a hybrid PD model to answer the following research questions: (1) What kind of PD and guidance do teachers need to identify and support emergent computational thinking development in young students’ language and work process? (2) What kind of PD and guidance do teachers need to identify emergent computational thinking development in young students’ work products? This project employed a mixed-methods research design that included pre- and post-surveys and interviews with teachers to measure and understand how growth in teachers’ confidence, knowledge, and self-efficacy with CT prepared them to identify and support these concepts with young learners. Additionally, analysis was able to identify the key formative assessment strategies these teachers employed to generate insight into students’ understanding and application of CT during problem-solving.more » « less
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Abstract Increasing access to computational ideas and practices is one important reason to integrate computational thinking (CT) in science classrooms. While integrating CT into science classrooms broadens exposure to computing, it may not be enough to ensure equitable participation in the science classroom. Equitable participation is crucial because providing students with an environment in which they are able to fully engage and participate in science and computing practices empowers students to learn and continue pursuing CT and science. To foreground equitable participation in CT‐integrated curricula, we undertook a research project in which researchers and teachers examined teacher conceptualizations of equitable participation and how teachers design for equitable participation by modifying a lesson that introduces computational modeling in science. The following research questions guided the study: (1) What are teachers' conceptualizations of equitable participation? (2) How do teachers design for equitable participation through co‐design of a CT‐integrated unit? Our findings suggest that teachers conceptualized and designed for equitable participation in the context of a CT‐integrated curriculum across three primary dimensions: accessibility, inclusion, and relevancy. Our contributions to the field of science teaching and learning are twofold: (1) obtaining an initial understanding of how teachers think about and design for equitable participation is crucial in order to support teachers in their pursuit of creating equitable learning experiences for CT and science learners, and (2) our findings show that we can study teacher conceptualizations and their design choices by examining specific modifications to a CT‐integrated science curriculum. Implications are discussed.more » « less
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