| 1. |
- Hamidi, Ali, et al.
(författare)
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Combining Maker Technologies to Promote Computational Thinking and Heart- ware skills through Project-based Activities : Design Considerations and Empirical Outputs
- 2021
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Ingår i: Proceedings of Fifth APSCE International Conference on Computational Thinking and STEM Education 2021. - Nanyang Technological University, Singapore : Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education. ; , s. 107-112
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many countries have started to integrate Computational Thinking (CT) as an essential 21st century skill into different schools’ STEM related subjects. Despite positive developments in terms of CT integration into schools’ curricula, there are still important issues and challenges to address on how to teach and use programming and CT in the classrooms. As part of our ongoing efforts to introduce and to apply different maker technologies to foster CT, this paper describes the results of an exploratory study aiming at designing and implementing learning activities in informal settings using the Engino® Robotics Platform (ERP) and the BBC micro:bit. We conducted a one-week-long workshop with the participation of 22 children aged 10-15 years old. The constructionist theoretical perspective and the Four P’s Creative Learning theory (projects, peers, passion, and play) were applied for conceptualizing and designing our activities. The initial results of our efforts indicate that firstly, learning contexts enriched by the combination of different maker technologies can help students to develop CT skills; Secondly, remixing learning experiences can bring CT into STEM subjects; and lastly, the design of the proposed workshop and the planned activities serve as the basis of a learning environment that can foster problem solving, creativity, and heart-ware skills when the four P's are taken into account. The current study contributes with empirical knowledge that can be used for the advancement of design practices to promote CT development in connection to STEM-related subjects both in informal and formal learning settings.
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| 2. |
- Hamidi, Ali, et al.
(författare)
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Digital Competence & Computational Thinking for Preschool Pre-service Teachers : From Lab to Practice
- 2022
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Ingår i: Proceedings of Sixth APSCE International Conference on Computational Thinking and STEM Education 2022. - Netherlands. - 9789463665636
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Digital competence is a skill associated with the 21- century abilities essential to contribute to today’s and tomorrow’s digital and technical environments. Computational Thinking (CT), which is a thought process for problem-solving, is one of the emerging trends that make up digital competence. In our explorative study, we have used educational robotics with four pre-service teachers during their four- week s placement at different preschools. We applied three distinct and complementary approaches to design and conduct this study: Systems Thinking (ST); Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge; and Computing Pedagogy. Our findings are categorized in two main perspectives: pre-service teachers and children. In the pre-service teachers' perspective, the participants indicated that their educational program lacks specific content and activities related to digital competence, CT, and programming. Despite the initial pre-service teachers’ thoughts on improvement of children's CT concepts, the findings show that CT practices such as collaboration and trial and error were developed. From the children’s perspective, the empirical findings illustrate that digital competence and CT development vary depending on the age of the children; whereas logical thinking and pattern recognition are skills that were present along the whole age range of children (ages 2-6), other CT skills like algorithmic thinking were developed among older children only (aged 5-6). We learned that an ST approach can behelpful, as multiple factors are involved in the practice. It reveals the underlying features of the situation that emerge when components of the system interact with each other.
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| 3. |
- Zerega, Rafael, et al.
(författare)
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A Co-design Approach for Developing Computational Thinking Skills in Connection to STEM Related Curriculum in Swedish Schools
- 2021
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Ingår i: Proceedings of Fifth APSCE International Conference on Computational Thinking and STEM Education, 2-4 June, 2021. - Nanyang Technological University, Singapore : Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education. ; , s. 144-147
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Computational thinking (CT) is a set of problem-solving methods which several scholars advocate for its inclusion in the educational curricula for K-12. Incorporating this knowledge into existing syllabuses is a challenge for both the educational community and researchers within the field of STEM education. The focus of this study is on the importance of co-design and constructionism in the process of planning and designing teaching modules to introduce students to CT using both robotic constructions and programming. This paper presents and discusses the design process of a series of workshops conducted with a group of middle school students during the fall of 2020. The main goal of these workshops was to introduce students to the main concepts and practices of CT, thus addressing the goals defined by the Swedish Agency for Education (Skolverket). Our initial findings indicate that co-designing educational activities (with a focus on constructionism and challenge-based learning) in close collaboration between teachers and researchers can lead to effective ways to foster the development of CT skills among students.
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| 4. |
- Zerega, Rafael, et al.
(författare)
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A Robotic-based Approach for CT Development : Challenges of Teaching Programming Concepts to Children and the Potential of Informal Learning
- 2022
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Ingår i: Proceedings of Sixth APSCE International Conference on Computational Thinking and STEM Education 2022. - Netherland : TU Delft Open. - 9789463665636
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In many countries worldwide, Computational thinking (CT) is now considered as a fundamental skill for dealing with the challenges of the 21stcentury society. One of the most common ways of imparting CT knowledge in K-12 education is by teaching programming and coding, as it requires applying a set of concepts and practices that are essential for thinking computationally. However, learning to program can be challenging and it may take time to develop these skills in the context of school activities. Thus, complementing formal K-12 education with after-school or other types of informal learning activities aimed at fostering CT concepts and practices among young students can be an alternative approach to develop these skills. During the summer of 2021, we carried out a series of workshops in the context of a summer camp taking place at a public library, organized by a local municipality in southern Sweden. These workshops (with a total teaching duration of 20 hours in one week) consisted of activities where children aged 11-14had to assemble wheeled robots and then program them using a visual language to make them execute different types of tasks and challenges. The outcomes of our study show that roughly one third of the participants managed to program the robots with code that made use of CT core concepts, such as conditionals, loops, and logical operators, among others. The rest of the children did not manage to successfully apply these concepts and thus they could only manage to program sequential linear scripts. We argue that learning to program and understanding some of the main concepts, which are for the most part very abstract, is a process that takes time and thus, extracurricular activities can be an effective method to complement formal education and help young students develop their CT and programming skills.
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