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1. Computational Thinking in Practice: How STEM Professionals Use CT in Their Work

   Beheshti, E. (April 2017, American Education Research Association Annual Meeting 2017)

   The goal of this study is to bring current computational thinking in STEM educational efforts in line with the increasingly computational nature of STEM research practices. We conducted interviews with STEM practitioners in various fields to understand the nature of CT as it happens in authentic research settings and to revisit a first iteration of our definition of CT in form of a taxonomy. This exploration gives us insight into how scientists use computers in their work and help us identify what practices are important to include in high school STEM learning contexts. Our findings will inform the design of classroom activities to better prepare today’s students for the modern STEM landscape that awaits them. 

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2. Embracing Culturally Relevant Computational Thinking in the Preschool Classroom: Leveraging Familiar Contexts for New Learning

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-023-01581-w  

   Quinn, Margaret_F; Caudle, Lori_A; Harper, Frances_K (October 2023, Early Childhood Education Journal)

   Abstract Computational thinking (CT) is an important twenty-first century skill that begins developing early. Recent interest in incorporating early CT experiences in early childhood education (i.e., preschool) has increased. In fact, the early years mark an important time during which initial competencies are acquired, interest and motivation begins to form, and in which children may develop a sense of belonging in STEM fields. As a result, providing children with access to robotics and computer science experiences to support CT that are also developmentally appropriate and culturally relevant is key. This paper uses the “powerful ideas” of computer science, seven developmentally appropriate CT concepts that children can learn, as a framework and explores the experiences of two (composite) teachers who participated in and co-developed a culturally relevant robotics program and the processes they undertake to support children’s CT development and learning. This paper considers practices that support the seven key powerful ideals while leveraging existing instructional routines and contexts that are already occurring in most classrooms, such as centers, small group activities, classroom environments, and read-alouds. Of note, this paper prioritizes approaches that acknowledge, center, and feature the ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds of young children and their families. Identifying affordable and accessible practices, this paper provides educators with tangible, integrated, and authentic practices to support children’s computational thinking, STEM learning, and sense of belonging. 

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3. A Principled Approach to Designing Assessments That Integrate Science and Computational Thinking

   https://doi.org/10.22318/cscl2018.384  

   Basu, S.; McElhaney, K. W.; Grover, S.; Harris, C. J.; Biswas, G. (July 2018, 13th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS))

   There is increasing interest in broadening participation in computational thinking (CT) by integrating CT into pre-college STEM curricula and instruction. Science, in particular, is emerging as an important discipline to support integrated learning. This highlights the need for carefully designed assessments targeting the integration of science and CT to help teachers and researchers gauge students’ proficiency with integrating the disciplines. We describe a principled design process to develop assessment tasks and rubrics that integrate concepts and practices across science, CT, and computational modeling. We conducted a pilot study with 10 high school students who responded to integrative assessment tasks as part of a physics-based computational modeling unit. Our findings indicate that the tasks and rubrics successfully elicit both Physics and CT constructs while distinguishing important aspects of proficiency related to the two disciplines. This work illustrates the promise of using such assessments formatively in integrated STEM and computing learning contexts. 

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4. Integrating computational thinking into middle school science through co-designed storylines

   Biddy, Q.; Gendreau Chakarov, A.; Jacobs, J.; Recker, M.; Sumner, T.; Penuel, W. (January 2020, Association for Science Teacher Education)

   We describe a professional development model that supports teachers to integrate computational thinking (CT) and computer science principles into middle school science and STEM classes. The model includes the collaborative design (co-design) (Voogt et al., 2015) of storylines or curricular units aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) that utilize programmable sensors such as those contained on the micro:bit. Teachers spend several workshops co-designing CT-integrated storylines and preparing to implement them with their own students. As part of this process, teachers develop or modify curricular materials to ensure a focus on coherent, student driven instruction through the investigation of scientific phenomena that are relevant to the students and utilize sensor technology. Teachers implement the storylines and meet to collaboratively reflect on their instructional practices as well as their students’ learning. Throughout this cyclical, multi-year process, teachers develop expertise in CT-integrated science instruction as they plan for and use instructional practices that align with three dimension science teaching and foreground computational thinking. Throughout the professional learning process, teachers alternate between wearing their “student hats” and their “teacher hats”, in order to maintain both a student and teacher perspective as they co-design and reflect on their implementation of CT-integrated units. This paper illustrates two teachers’ experiences of the professional development process over a two-year period, including their learning, planning, implementation, and reflection on two co-designed units. 

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5. Work in Progress – The Development of a K-12 Integrated STEM Observation Protocol.

   Roehrig, G.H; Ring-Whalen, E.A.; Wieselmann, J.R.; Dare, E.A.; Ellis, J.A. (January 2019, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   This WIP presentation is intended to share and gather feedback on the development of an observation protocol for K-12 integrated STEM instruction, the STEM-OP. Specifically, the STEM-OP is being developed for use in K-12 science and/or engineering settings where integrated STEM instruction takes place. While the importance of integrated STEM education is established through national policy documents, there remains disagreement on models and effective approaches for integrated STEM instruction. Our broad definition of integrated STEM includes the use of two or more STEM disciplines to solve a real-world problem or design challenge that supports student development of 21st century skills. This issue is confounded by the lack of observation protocols sensitive to integrated STEM teaching and learning that can be used to inform research of the effectiveness of new models and strategies. Existing instruments most commonly used by researchers, such as the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP), were designed prior to the development of the Next Generation Science Standards and the integration of engineering into science standards. These instruments were also designed for use in reform-based science classrooms, not engineering or integrated STEM learning environments. While engineering-focused observation protocols do exist for K-12 classrooms, they do not evaluate beyond an engineering focus, making them limited tools to evaluate integrated STEM instruction. In order to facilitate the implementation of integrated STEM in K-12 classrooms and the development of the nascent integrated STEM education literature, our research team is developing a new integrated STEM observation protocol for use in K-12 science and engineering classrooms. This valid and reliable instrument will be designed for use in a variety of educational contexts and by different education stakeholders to increase the quality of K-12 STEM education. At the end of this project, the STEM-OP will be made available through an online platform that will include an embedded training program to facilitate its broad use. In the first year of this four-year project, we are working on the initial development of the STEM-OP through video analysis and exploratory factor analysis. We are utilizing existing classroom video from a previous project with approximately 2,000 unique classroom videos representing a variety of grade levels (4-9), science content (life, earth, and physical science), engineering design challenges, and school demographics (urban, suburban). The development of the STEM-OP is guided by published frameworks that focus on providing quality K-12 integrated STEM and engineering education, such as the Framework for Quality K-12 Engineering Education. Our anticipated results at the time the ASEE meeting will include a review of our item development process and finalized items included on the draft STEM-OP. Additionally, we anticipate being able to share findings from the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on our video-coded data, which will identify distinct instructional dimensions responsible for integrated STEM instruction. We value the opportunity to gather feedback from the engineering education community as the integration of engineering design and practices is integral to quality integrated STEM instruction. 

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