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Abstract This paper reports on the first iteration of the Computational Thinking Summer Institute, a month‐long programme in which high school teachers co‐designed computationally enhanced mathematics and science curricula with researchers. The co‐design process itself was a constructionist learning experience for teachers resulting in constructionist curricula to be used in their own classrooms. We present three case studies to illustrate different ways teachers and researchers divided the labour of co‐design and the implications of these different co‐design styles for teacher learning and classroom enactment. Specifically, some teachers programmed their own computational tools, while others helped to conceptualise them but left the construction to their co‐design partners. Results indicate that constructionist co‐design is a promising dual approach to curriculum and professional development but that sometimes these two goals are in tension. Most teachers gained considerable confidence and skills in computational thinking, but sometimes the pressure to finish curriculum development during the institute led teachers to leave construction of computational tools to their co‐design partners, limiting their own opportunities for computational learning. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic?Computational tools can support constructionist science and math learning by making powerful ideas tangible.Supporting teachers to learn computational thinking and to use constructionist pedagogies is challenging.What this paper adds?Constructionist co‐design is a promising approach to simultaneously support curriculum development and professional development, but there are tensions to navigate in trying to accomplish both goals simultaneously.Implications for practice and/or policyDesigners of professional development should consider constructionist co‐design as an approach but should be aware of potential tensions and prepare for them.
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Programming as a language for young children to express and explore mathematics in school
Abstract Natural language helps express mathematical thinking and contexts. Conventional mathematical notation (CMN) best suits expressions and equations. Each is essential; each also has limitations, especially for learners. Our research studies how programming can be a advantageous third language that can also help restore mathematical connections that are hidden by topic‐centred curricula. Restoring opportunities for surprise and delight reclaims mathematics' creative nature. Studies of children's use of language in mathematics and their programming behaviours guide our iterative design/redesign of mathematical microworlds in which students, ages 7–11, use programming in their regular school lessonsas a language for learning mathematics. Though driven by mathematics, not coding, the microworlds develop the programming over time so that it continues to support children's developing mathematical ideas. This paper briefly describes microworlds EDC has tested with well over 400 7‐to‐8‐year‐olds in school, and others tested (or about to be tested) with over 200 8‐to‐11‐year‐olds. Our challenge was to satisfy schools' topical orientation and fit easily within regular classroom study but use and foreshadow other mathematical learning to remove the siloes. The design/redesign research and evaluation is exploratory, without formal methodology. We are also more formally studying effects on children's learning. That ongoing study is not reported here. Practitioner notesWhat is already knownActive learning—doing—supports learning.Collaborative learning—doingtogether—supports learning.Classroom discourse—focused, relevantdiscussion, not just listening—supports learning.Clear articulation of one's thinking, even just to oneself, helps develop that thinking.What this paper addsThe common languages we use for classroom mathematics—natural language for conveying the meaning and context of mathematical situations and for explaining our reasoning; and the formal (written) language of conventional mathematical notation, the symbols we use in mathematical expressions and equations—are both essential but each presents hurdles that necessitate the other. Yet, even together, they are insufficient especially for young learners.Programming, appropriately designed and used, can be the third language that both reduces barriers and provides the missing expressive and creative capabilities children need.Appropriate design for use in regular mathematics classrooms requires making key mathematical content obvious, strong and the ‘driver’ of the activities, and requires reducing tech ‘overhead’ to near zero.Continued usefulness across the grades requires developing children's sophistication and knowledge with the language; the powerful ways that children rapidly acquire facility with (natural) language provides guidance for ways they can learn a formal language as well.Implications for policy and/or practiceMathematics teaching can take advantage of the ways children learn through experimentation and attention to the results, and of the ways children use their language brain even for mathematics.In particular, programming—in microworlds driven by the mathematical content, designed to minimise distraction and overhead, open to exploration and discoveryen routeto focused aims, and in which childrenself‐evaluate—can allow clear articulation of thought, experimentation with immediate feedback.As it aids the mathematics, it also builds computational thinking and satisfies schools' increasing concerns to broaden access to ideas of computer science.
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- PAR ID:
- 10452107
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- British Journal of Educational Technology
- Volume:
- 52
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 0007-1013
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 969-985
- Size(s):
- p. 969-985
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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