Informatics in Schools. Rethinking Computing Education

Integration of computational thinking (CT) into numerous disciplines across the K-12 curriculum is gaining increased attention. In this study, based on the technology integration framework, we investigated how students’ understandings, difficulties, and attitudes towards learning subject matter varied at different levels of CT integration. We implemented six different case studies by integrating CT into six different subjects: science, traffic, language, biology, geography, and physics. Two primary and four secondary school teachers, 38 primary school students, and 113 secondary school students were involved in the study. We categorized these lessons according to the technology integration model: unplugged activities are grouped as augmentation level; robotic and two modeling activities are labeled as modification level; modeling and digital storytelling activities are labeled as redefinition level. Our findings indicate that students reported a very positive attitude toward redefinition level activities. Teachers stated that compared to standard instructional activities, students can go deeper and understand the subject content better in CT integrated lessons.

Tasks from Bebras International Challenge on Informatics and Computational thinking are becoming a widespread educational tool for introducing students to the concepts of computer science not only in a form of a contest, but as well in computer science classrooms, games and unplugged activities. There is an ongoing debate in Bebras community about the need and the role of interactivity in Bebras tasks. Practices in different countries range from pen-and-paper solutions to fully interactive systems with immediate feedback. This work introduces classification of Interactive Bebras tasks based on engagement and interactivity taxonomies aligned with current practices of Bebras task development. Proposed classification is then used to categorize the latest tasks from Lithuanian, French and Italian Bebras Challenges. The results from this work shed more light on the properties, potential benefits and shortcomings of non-programming interactive tasks informing future research on the topic as well as current practices of organizing International Bebras Challenge.

The increasing importance of introducing computer science and computational thinking in primary education highlights the need to prepare teachers adequately. This study reports on professional teacher training in programming. It draws on the Technology Usage Inventory (TUI) model to investigate how an interdisciplinary intervention with programmable robots, combined with the storytelling method, can influence the intention to use them in the classroom. Special focus is given to the Tell, Draw & Code method to offer teachers a didactic concept for implementation. The floor robots used in this study are Bee-bots. At the beginning and end of the teacher training course, the participating teachers completed a questionnaire about their perceptions, attitudes, and intentions about using robots in the classroom. In addition, after designing and implementing activities with robots, the teachers provided qualitative reflections on their experiences. In comparing pre-and post-test and the analyses of the qualitative data, the study shows a significant increase in the positive attitude towards using the robots. These findings highlight the need for teachers to have opportunities to explore, reflect on and experience the potential of new technologies as part of their teacher development to implement innovations sustainably.

This paper presents the content of, a didactic approach to, and achievement of a first programming course for students engaged in business studies. Visual and textual programming were combined and a didactic approach that mainly focused on programming and fulfilling sub-tasks was used. This educational approach was applied to novice students of average ability and resulted in modest programming achievements. These achievements are first summarized, presenting the solution of a web application whose development was accessible to most students. Then, possible reasons for such achievements are discussed. The paper ends with several suggestions for practice and research, including a proposal for another sequencing of programming topics that would increase students’ motivation to learn programming and improve their learning outcomes. Requirements for hybrid environments supporting both visual and textual programming are also considered. Although the applied methodology and resulting achievements reflect the authors experience in teaching programming to second-year undergraduate students, they are relevant to teaching programming in high school education as well.

Creating computer games is a complex task, and when the game is treated not as a program but rather as a project, other aspects may enter the game-making process, such as game design, game art or project management itself. The task’s complexity also allows pupils to develop new skills and practices, which can help them motivate themselves, solve problems, or accomplish tasks. And although it is programming that is currently at the centre of many educational research endeavours in primary schools, other aspects of the game-making process could offer valuable insights, such as how pupils approach those other aspects or how this new complexity alters pupils’ learning. In this paper, pupils’ practices regarding the aspect of game art are explored. Using a mixed-methods design, we describe the experience of teachers at a primary school game-making course. The aim was to explore the role of game art in a programmer’s creating process. Building on interviews with experienced teachers, functions that game art tasks fulfil are identified and then measured again to determine how meaningful they are according to teachers. Moreover, the assessment of the method of using pixel art tasks is described and it outlines reasons why it is a suitable option when introducing pupils to creating game art. Together, this paper offers insights into how game art can help regulate learning and promote good practices among primary school pupils.

There is little doubt about both the importance and at the same time difficulty of teaching recursion as part of any sophisticated programming curriculum. In this paper, we outline an approach that has its focus on introducing the concept in very small steps, integrating recursion into a K-12 programming class. The main paradigm is to be as constructive as possible in that everything that is introduced is also implemented right away from the first lesson on.

The Bebras International Challenge of Informatics and Computational Thinking has collected an increasingly large number of tasks. Every year more than 200 new task proposals are submitted of which many are accepted into the task pool. Properly categorizing these tasks to facilitate the use in the national challenges and to reuse them in the future is a challenge in itself: the categorizations in the past were biased and only covered certain aspects. Because the tasks are meant to be used everywhere in the world they are supposed to be solvable by students without any particular knowledge in computer science. General knowledge or skills may be assumed, though.

In this paper a different approach is presented that does not focus on creating perfect categories but rather on different dimensions within which categories must be defined. Such a multi-dimensional approach should offer the ability to find tasks more easily and will fix some of the common shortcomings of the previously used categorizations. The three dimensions covered are: (computer science) topic, Computational Thinking skills, and range of requirements.

Physical computing, making, tinkering and Computational Thinking (CT) are frequently applied to promote Computer Science (CS) and attract the attention of young people. In recent years, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education has received considerable support from schools, parents, and communities. The combination of physical computing with STEM education can improve CT as part of CS or informatics/computing education and can be considered as an essential skill for the workforce of the 21st century. Physical computing helps children build connections between the real world and programming, while giving them something exciting to focus on. The goal of this study is to demonstrate how a summer school on physical computing and STEM education including CT contributes to shaping girls’ attitudes and their acceptance of technology. To examine how the technology acceptance factors are related to the girls’ behavioural intention and attitude change towards the use of microcontrollers, an adaptation of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) was applied. The survey was conducted with 21 girls, 11 to 15 years old, both before and after summer school. The results showed that carefully planned activities on mini-projects with purposeful support of lecturers reduce the technological anxiety and contributes to the girls’ intention to use technology in the future. The implications of these results can be used to develop various supporting physical computing activities in the school community. The methodology, examples and real stories of success of girls in computing help teachers to promote CS education in schools.

This paper is structured as follows. We start with an introduction to the Czech educational context and some terminology. In Sect. 2, we describe the initial situation and the first steps towards the reform of school informatics. In Sect. 3, we explain the main concept and describe a project preparing new educational content and the conception of teacher education. An outline of the contents of the curriculum and teachers’ first reactions are shown in Sect. 4.

Professional Development (PD) organizations provide training programs for computer science teachers through teacher PD. Programming as part of a teacher’s PD has grown in importance in K-12 education. As a result, an increasing number of teachers, often without sufficient training, are teaching programming in their schools. It’s challenging to learn to program, and it’s even more challenging to teach it. Teachers must be able to program and teach programming, which is usually done in the context of multiple disciplines. In this study, we take a closer look at a teacher’s perspective on teachers’ PD in programming. We focus on the PD program offered by our university, composed of two courses over one academic year, and define the following research questions: Which strengths and weaknesses of the PD program provided are suited for in-service teachers when learning to program? Learning programming takes time. How could this long learning process be supported? This is an interview study of sixteen in-service teachers who joined the program. The main findings seem to be that teachers are comfortable with how the program is set up. They prefer flexible courses so that they can adapt the implementation with their regular teaching. They also emphasize the need for a continuous learning process and a community of practice (CoP) to continue developing. The main contribution of this study is the evaluation of the PD program at the university.

Programming is being widely adopted as a classroom activity to promote computational literacy across the full spectrum of ages. As of now, however, there is a gap between curriculum designers and the teachers that work directly alongside pupils. Educators build their lessons around predefined curricula and programming environments with limited scope for customization. As a result, their involvement is limited to using teaching resources as black boxes and creating tasks that live external to the programming environment. This work presents a small extension to the XLogoOnline programming environment and demonstrates how non-technical users are empowered to define, share and evaluate their own programming tasks. Our proposed tool is targeted at navigation tasks on a two-dimensional grid. Different categories of tasks can be easily assembled in graphical form and submitted solutions are automatically verified. We report from practical experience over a time span of 18 months and give highlights from a collection of 1331 programming tasks. The tool offers value by allowing teachers to design handouts and exams and also encourages teamwork by allowing pupils to challenge their fellow classmates. Beyond their use in the classroom, the idea of collecting task sets is a useful foundation for self-guided learning, exams and even large-scale competitions – which we intend to pursue in future work.

Computer Science in K-12 education has had many issues over the years, especially for those who teach—creating lessons, finding resources, lacking official education in the field, keeping up with constant changes in the field, and feeling isolated. These issues have been mapped by various research efforts, where one found that two-thirds of teachers in the US lack a degree in the field. Contributing to the list of issues and their understanding can show a better path towards helping K-12 computer science teachers with their practice. Furthermore, the need to understand the specific context of computer science education in relation to a country is present. It further helps understand the specific needs that teachers have for their practice and professional development. We investigate the challenges in teaching computer science at the high-school level in Serbia while exploring opportunities for professional development and usage of reflection in teachers’ practice. We focus on teachers as the audience, which has to stay up-to-date in a fast-changing computer science field while facing numerous issues already found in the literature and voiced at teachers’ conferences, seminars, and workshops. Participants expressed having issues with content and ever changing nature of computer science. While they expressed the need to learn and improve, professional development courses are lacking which is taking the toll on the teachers. Reflection, although useful, is not used by everyone and mandatory reflection only adds more paperwork to already high workload.