Title: Introducing Coding through Tabletop Board Games and Their Digital Instantiations across Elementary Classrooms and School Libraries
This experience report describes an approach for helping elementary schools integrate computational thinking and coding by leveraging existing resources and infrastructure that do not rely on 1-1 computing. A particular focus is using the school library and media center as a site to complement and enhance classroom instruction on coding. Further, our approach builds upon "unplugged" knowledge and practices that are already familiar to and motivating for students, in this case tabletop board games. Through these games, students can use their prior knowledge and ease with tabletop gaming mechanics to cue relevant ideas for core computational concepts. We describe a model and an instructional unit spanning across classroom and school library settings that builds upon board game play as a source domain for computing knowledge. Building on expansive framing, the model emphasizes instructional linkages being made between one domain (the tabletop board game) and another (specially designed Scratch project shells with partially complete code blocks) such that the reasoning activities and different contexts are seen as instantiations of the same encompassing context. We present the experiences of three elementary school teachers as they implemented the unit in their classrooms and with their school librarian. We also show initial findings on the impact of the unit on student interest (N=87), as measured by pre- and post- surveys. We conclude with lessons learned about ways to improve the unit and future classroom implementations. more »« less
Lee, Victor R.; Poole, Frederick; Clarke-Midura, Jody; Recker, Mimi
(, The Interdisciplinarity of the Learning Sciences, 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2020)
Gresalfi, Melissa; Horn, Ilana Seidel
(Ed.)
This paper presents an instructional design using expansive framing to introduce computer programming to upper elementary students. By using a tabletop board game as the context for learning, bridging connections between the learning in the board game and its digital instantiation, and privileging student authorship, we show how two students developed and transferred their understanding of several computational practices, including procedures and conditional logic, from the board game into their design of digital games in Scratch.
Lee, Victor R.; Poole, Frederick; Clarke-Midura, Jody; Recker, Mimi
(, The Interdisciplinarity of the Learning Sciences, 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2020)
Gresalfi, Melissa; Horn, Ilana Seidel
(Ed.)
This paper presents an instructional design using expansive framing to introduce computer programming to upper elementary students. By using a tabletop board game as the context for learning, bridging connections between the learning in the board game and its digital instantiation, and privileging student authorship, we show how two students developed and transferred their understanding of several computational practices, including procedures and conditional logic, from the board game into their design of digital games in Scratch.
Objectives. The increasing demand for computing skills has led to a rapid rise in the development of new computer science (CS) curricula, many with the goal of equitably broadening participation of underrepresented students in CS. While such initiatives are vital, factors outside of the school environment also play a role in influencing students’ interests. In this paper, we examined the effects of students’ perceived parental support on their interest in computer programming and explored the mechanisms through which this effect may have been established as students participated in an introductory CS instructional unit. Participants. This instructional unit was implemented with upper primary (grade 5) school students and was designed to broaden trajectories for participation in CS. The participants in the current study (N=170) came from six classrooms in two rural schools in the western United States. Study Method. The seven-week instructional unit began with students playing a commercial CS tabletop board game that highlighted fundamental programming concepts, and transitioned to having students create their own board game levels in the block-based programming language, Scratch. Further, because the board game could be taken home, the instructional unit offered opportunities to involve the family in school-based CS activities. To investigate the effect of students’ perception of parental (specifically father and mother) support on their interest in and self-efficacy to pursue CS, we surveyed students before and after the unit’s implementations and explored the structural relationship of the data using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results. We present three findings. First, the combined effect of students’ perceived mother’s and father’s support measured prior to the implementation (pre-survey) predicted students’ self-efficacy (Std B = 0.37, SE = 0.010, p < .001) and interest in computer programming (Std B = 0.328, SE = 0.134, p < .003) measured after the implementation (post-survey). Secondly, the combined effect of perceived mother and father support (Std B = 0.132, 95% CI [0.039, 0.399], 99% CI [0.017, 0.542]) on students’ interest was mediated by whether or not they took the CS board game home. Conclusions. Our findings indicate that perceived parental support has the potential to play an important role in students’ self-efficacy and interest in computer programming and that providing opportunities for students to bring CS artifacts home has the potential to further affect students’ interest in computer programming.
Smith, H.
(, Contemporary issues in technology and teacher education)
null
(Ed.)
The Game Play and Design Framework is a project-based instructional method to engage teachers and students with mathematics content by utilizing technology as a vehicle for game play and creation. In the authors’ prior work, they created a technology tool and game editing platform, the Wearable Learning Cloud Platform (WLCP), which enables teachers and students to play, create, and experience technology-augmented learning activities. This paper describes a 14-week Game Play and Design professional development program in which middle school teachers played, designed, tested, and implemented mathematics games in the classroom with their own students. Examples are included of teacher-created games, feedback from the students’ experience designing games, and evidence of student learning gains from playing teacher-created games. This work provides a pedagogical approach for educators and students that utilizes the benefits of mobile technologies and collaborative learning through games to develop students’ higher-level thinking in STEM classrooms.
Smith, H.
(, Contemporary issues in technology and teacher education)
null
(Ed.)
The Game Play and Design Framework is a project-based instructional method to engage teachers and students with mathematics content by utilizing technology as a vehicle for game play and creation. In the authors’ prior work, they created a technology tool and game editing platform, the Wearable Learning Cloud Platform (WLCP), which enables teachers and students to play, create, and experience technology-augmented learning activities. This paper describes a 14-week Game Play and Design professional development program in which middle school teachers played, designed, tested, and implemented mathematics games in the classroom with their own students. Examples are included of teacher-created games, feedback from the students’ experience designing games, and evidence of student learning gains from playing teacher-created games. This work provides a pedagogical approach for educators and students that utilizes the benefits of mobile technologies and collaborative learning through games to develop students’ higher-level thinking in STEM classrooms.
Lee, Victor R., Poole, Frederick, Clarke-Midura, Jody, Recker, Mimi, and Rasmussen, Melissa. Introducing Coding through Tabletop Board Games and Their Digital Instantiations across Elementary Classrooms and School Libraries. Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10159176. SIGCSE '20: Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education . Web. doi:10.1145/3328778.3366917.
Lee, Victor R., Poole, Frederick, Clarke-Midura, Jody, Recker, Mimi, & Rasmussen, Melissa. Introducing Coding through Tabletop Board Games and Their Digital Instantiations across Elementary Classrooms and School Libraries. SIGCSE '20: Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, (). Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10159176. https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366917
Lee, Victor R., Poole, Frederick, Clarke-Midura, Jody, Recker, Mimi, and Rasmussen, Melissa.
"Introducing Coding through Tabletop Board Games and Their Digital Instantiations across Elementary Classrooms and School Libraries". SIGCSE '20: Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (). Country unknown/Code not available. https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366917.https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10159176.
@article{osti_10159176,
place = {Country unknown/Code not available},
title = {Introducing Coding through Tabletop Board Games and Their Digital Instantiations across Elementary Classrooms and School Libraries},
url = {https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10159176},
DOI = {10.1145/3328778.3366917},
abstractNote = {This experience report describes an approach for helping elementary schools integrate computational thinking and coding by leveraging existing resources and infrastructure that do not rely on 1-1 computing. A particular focus is using the school library and media center as a site to complement and enhance classroom instruction on coding. Further, our approach builds upon "unplugged" knowledge and practices that are already familiar to and motivating for students, in this case tabletop board games. Through these games, students can use their prior knowledge and ease with tabletop gaming mechanics to cue relevant ideas for core computational concepts. We describe a model and an instructional unit spanning across classroom and school library settings that builds upon board game play as a source domain for computing knowledge. Building on expansive framing, the model emphasizes instructional linkages being made between one domain (the tabletop board game) and another (specially designed Scratch project shells with partially complete code blocks) such that the reasoning activities and different contexts are seen as instantiations of the same encompassing context. We present the experiences of three elementary school teachers as they implemented the unit in their classrooms and with their school librarian. We also show initial findings on the impact of the unit on student interest (N=87), as measured by pre- and post- surveys. We conclude with lessons learned about ways to improve the unit and future classroom implementations.},
journal = {SIGCSE '20: Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education},
author = {Lee, Victor R. and Poole, Frederick and Clarke-Midura, Jody and Recker, Mimi and Rasmussen, Melissa},
}
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