Ashish Aggarwal
Christina Gardner-McCune
ABSTRACT
Researchers and educators have designed curricula and resources for introductory programming environments such as Scratch, App Inventor, and Kodu to foster computational thinking in K-12. This paper is an empirical study of the effectiveness and usefulness of tiles and flashcards developed for Microsoft Kodu Game Lab to support students in learning how to program and develop games. In particular, we investigated the impact of physical manipulatives on 3rd -- 5th grade students' ability to understand, recognize, construct, and use game programming design patterns. We found that the students who used physical manipulatives performed well in rule construction, whereas the students who engaged more with the rule editor of the programming environment had better mental simulation of the rules and understanding of the concepts.
- Bhagi, A. (n.d.). App Inventor Concept Cards. Retrieved August 26, 2016, from http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/sites/all/files/ConceptCards/ai2/AI2_ConceptCards.pdfGoogle Scholar
- CS Unplugged; http://csunplugged.org. Accessed 2016 June 21.Google Scholar
- Dann, W. P., Cooper, S., & Pausch, R. (2011). Learning to Program with Alice (w/CD ROM). Prentice Hall Press. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Enome, Inc. (n.d.). Literacy Manipulatives. Retrieved August 26, 2016, from https://goalbookapp.com/toolkit/strategy/literacy-manipulativesGoogle Scholar
- Krathwohl, D. R. (2002). A revision of Bloom's taxonomy: An overview. Theory into practice, 41(4), 212--218. Google ScholarCross Ref
- Learning Resources, "Research on the benefits of manipulatives;" http://www.learningresources.com/text/pdf/Mathresearch.pdf Accessed 2016 June 23.Google Scholar
- Lifelong Kindergarten Group (MIT), "Blocks;" http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/Blocks. Accessed 2016 June 18.Google Scholar
- Moore, S. D. (n.d.). Why Teach Mathematics with Manipulatives? Retrieved August 26, 2016, from ETA hand2mind; http://www.hand2mind.com/pdf/Benefits_of_Manipulatives.pdf. Accessed 2016 June 18.Google Scholar
- Repenning, A., Webb, D., & Ioannidou, A. (2010, March). Scalable game design and the development of a checklist for getting computational thinking into public schools. In Proceedings of the 41st ACM technical symposium on Computer science education (pp. 265--269). ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Resnick, M., et al. "Scratch: Programming for everyone." Communications of the ACM 52, 11 (2009): 60--67. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Rusk, N. "Scratch cards;" http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/resources/scratch-cards-0. Accessed 2016 July 21Google Scholar
- Stolee, K. T., & Fristoe, T. (2011, March). Expressing computer science concepts through Kodu game lab. In Proceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer science education (pp. 99--104). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Touretzky, D. S., Marghitu, D., Ludi, S., Bernstein, D., & Ni, L. (2013, March). Accelerating K-12 computational thinking using scaffolding, staging, and abstraction. In Proceeding of the 44th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education (pp. 609--614). ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Touretzky, D. S. (2014). Teaching Kodu with physical manipulatives. ACM Inroads, 5(4), 44--51. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Touretzky, D. S., Gardner-McCune, C., & Aggarwal, A. (2016, February). Teaching Lawfulness With Kodu. In Proceedings of the 47th ACM Technical Symposium on Computing Science Education (pp. 621--626). ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Touretzky, D. S. (n.d.). Kodu Curriculum Modules. Retrieved July 26, 2016, from https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Kodu/Curriculum/Google Scholar
- Touretzky, D. S. (n.d.). Kodu Idiom Flash Cards & Tiles. Retrieved July 26, 2016, from https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Kodu/Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Evaluating the Effect of Using Physical Manipulatives to Foster Computational Thinking in Elementary School
Recommendations
Computational thinking in high school courses
SIGCSE '10: Proceedings of the 41st ACM technical symposium on Computer science educationThe number of undergraduates entering computer science has declined in recent years. This is paralleled by a drop in the number of high school students taking the CS AP exam and the number of high schools offering computer science courses. The declines ...
Evaluation and development of STEAM teachers’ computational thinking skills: Analysis of multiple influential factors
AbstractComputational thinking (CT) has become the basic foothold of STEAM education. The role of teachers as an essential element of CT education cannot be ignored. Therefore, measuring teachers’ ability to integrate CT into classroom is necessary. There ...
A model for piloting pathways for computational thinking in a general education curriculum
SIGCSE '11: Proceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer science educationComputational thinking has been identified as a necessary fundamental skill for all students. University curricula, however, are currently not designed to provide such knowledge to a broad student population. In this paper, we report on our experiences ...
Comments