skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: Agency and Expressivity in Programming Play
Computer programming has been conceptualized as an expressive medium, but little is known about how to best support students in exercising agency and engagement in coding tasks. This paper draws on data from a five-day summer camp for middle school students that integrated computer science and movement. We focus on an activity in which students created choreography and modeled it in the programming environment NetLogo. The task was designed with the goal of creating opportunities for students to exercise agency and expressivity while coding. We analyze the extent to which incompatibilities, or moments of mismatch between what is possible in the dance versus NetLogo environments, shaped students’ agency and exploration. Our findings suggest that designing with incompatibilities positioned students with agency over their models and supported their own expressive goals.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1742257
PAR ID:
10311175
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Editor(s):
de Vries, E.
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Computersupported collaborative learning
Volume:
1
Issue:
1
ISSN:
1573-4552
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; (, Journal of Research on Technology in Education)
    This paper considers how a curricular design that integrated computer programming and creative movement shaped students’ engagement with computing. We draw on data from a camp for middle schoolers, focusing on an activity in which students used the programming environment NetLogo to re-represent their physical choreography. We analyze the extent to which students noticed incompatibilities (mismatches between possibilities in dance and NetLogo), and how encountering them shaped their coding. Our findings suggest that as students attended to incompatibilities, they experienced struggle, but persisted and engaged in iterative cycles of design. Our work suggests that tensions between arts and programming may promote student engagement. 
    more » « less
  2. (, The Interdisciplinarity of the Learning Sciences, 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2020)
    Gresalfi, M.S. (Ed.)
    This study is from a larger design-based research project contributing to efforts to incorporate CT into K-12 education by studying how middle school students can learn about CT in the context of programming and art. During the first year of the study, we held a five-day summer camp taught by four mathematics teachers using NetLogo. This poster begins to examine the role of the teachers, focusing on the strategies they used to position themselves and the structure and agency of each task. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; (, Journal of College Science Teaching)
    Advancements in computation and machine learning have revolutionized science, enabling researchers to address once insurmountable challenges. Bioinformatics, a field that heavily relies on computer-driven analysis of biological data, has greatly benefited from these developments. However, traditional bioinformatics instruction frequently lacks the necessary coding skills. This article explores the transformation of a bioinformatics course in which feedback from students revealed limitations in traditional web application interfaces and the absence of coding automated pipelines for real-world applications. To address these shortcomings, the authors redesigned the project to incorporate computer programming using Google Colaboratory, where students access databases and websites by coding. The curriculum outlined the integration of modern programming skills with essential bioinformatics concepts. This article evaluates the effectiveness of this redesign by analyzing a selfresponse survey completed by course participants. Results show a positive impact on students’ perception of science and scientific research. Bayesian statistical analysis reveals that the programming component significantly predicts students’ career clarity in science and their pursuit of graduate education. Integrating coding exercises in bioinformatics education enhances students’ preparedness for real-world applications. The freely available GitHub repository will facilitate adoption. By embracing computational tools, students can become adept researchers capable of tackling complex biological questions. 
    more » « less
  4. ; (, Journal of technology and teacher education)
    Computational thinking (CT) involves breaking a problem into smaller components and solving it using algorithmic thinking and abstraction. CT is no longer exclusively for computer scientists but for everyone. While CT does not necessarily require programming, learning programming to enhance CT skills at a young age can help shape the next generation of children with knowledge that can help them succeed in our technological world. In order to produce teachers who are able to incorporate programming and CT into their future classrooms, we created an introductory Computer Science course (CS0) targeting future K-8 STEM teachers yet open to any student to enroll and learn computer science. We used a mixed-methods approach, examining both quantitative and qualitative data based on self-reported surveys, classroom artifacts, and focus groups from four semesters of data. We found that after taking the course, students’ self-efficacy in CT increased and while education students initially had lower confidence in their computing abilities than computer science students in the course, by the end of the semester there were no differences in their perceived and actual coding abilities when compared with computer science students. Furthermore, education students had many ideas on how to incorporate similar projects into their own future classrooms. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; (, Proceedings of IEEE Integrated STEM education Conference (ISEC) 2018)
    This paper discusses our work in progress aiming to explore how computer simulations can be integrated into the K-12 curriculum of Earth and Environmental science. Several interactive simulations using Netlogo, a multi-agent modeling environment, and Scratch, a visual programming software are being developed with steerable parameters and the corresponding output plots for students to manipulate and interpret the results, respectively. Here, we present two simulations we designed on water cycle and discuss how these may help students learn about the distribution of water and its continuous move in the ecosystem. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email