ABSTRACT
Computational thinking is nowadays being widely adopted and investigated. Educators and researchers are using two main approaches to teach these skills in schools: with computer programming exercises, and with unplugged activities that do not require the use of digital devices or any kind of specific hardware. While the former is the mainstream approach, the latter is especially important for schools that do not have proper technology resources, Internet connections or even electrical power. However, there is a lack of investigations that prove the effectiveness of the unplugged activities in the development of computational thinking skills, particularly for primary schools. This paper, which summarizes a quasi-experiment carried out in two primary schools in Spain, tries to shed some light on this regard. The results show that students in the experimental groups, who took part in the unplugged activities, enhanced their computational thinking skills significantly more than their peers in the control groups who did not participate during the classes, proving that the unplugged approach may be effective for the development of this ability.
- Phillip L. Ackerman and Eric L. Rolfhus. 1999. The locus of adult intelligence: Knowledge, abilities, and nonability traits. Psychology and Aging 14, 2 (1999), 314--330.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Ashish Aggarwal, Christina Gardner-McCune, and David S. Touretzky. 2017. Evaluating the Effect of Using Physical Manipulatives to Foster Computational Thinking in Elementary School. ACM Press, 9--14. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Association for Computing Machinery. 2003. A Model Curriculum for K-12 Computer Science: Final Report of the ACM K-12 Task Force Curriculum Committee. ACM, New York. OCLC: 907036381. Google Scholar
- Anja Balanskat and Katja Engelhardt. 2015. Computing our future: Computer programming and coding - Priorities, school curricula and initiatives across Europe. (Oct. 2015). http://www.eun.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=3596b121-941c-4296-a760-0f4e4795d6fa&groupId=43887Google Scholar
- Tim Bell, Ian H. Witten, and Mike Fellows. 1998. Computer Science Unplugged... - Off-line activities and games for all ages (draft) (1 ed.).Google Scholar
- Stefania Bocconi, Augusto Chioccariello, Giuliana Dettori, Anusca Ferrari, Katja Engelhardt, Panagiotis Kampylis, and Yves Punie. 2016. Developing Computational Thinking in Compulsory Education - Implications for policy and practice. Technical Report. Publications Office of the European Union.Google Scholar
- Christian Brackmann, Dante Barone, Ana Casali, Rafael Boucinha, and Susana Munoz-Hernandez. 2016. Computational thinking: Panorama of the Americas. IEEE, 1--6.Google Scholar
- Karen Brennan and Mitchel Resnick. 2012. New frameworks for studying and assessing the development of computational thinking. In Proceedings of the 2012 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Vancouver, Canada, 1--25. http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/ct/files/AERA2012.pdfGoogle Scholar
- Gleider Campos, Simone Cavalheiro, Luciana Foss, Ana Pernas, Clause Piana, Marilton Aguiar, André Du Bois, and Renata Reiser. 2014. Organização de Informações via Pensamento Computacional: Relato de Atividade Aplicada no Ensino Fundamental. 20o. Workshop de Informática na Escola (WIE 2014) (2014).Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jacob Cohen. 1988. Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences Lawrence Earlbaum Associates. Hillsdale, NJ (1988), 20--26.Google Scholar
- Paul Curzon. 2013. cs4fn and computational thinking unplugged. In Proceedings of the 8th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education. ACM, 47--50. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Paul Curzon, Peter W McOwan, Nicola Plant, and Laura R Meagher. 2014. Introducing teachers to computational thinking using unplugged storytelling. In Proceedings of the 9th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education. ACM, 89--92. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mark Engelberg. 2015. Code Master Programming Logic Game, Thinkfun Inc. (2015).Google Scholar
- Hylke Faber, Menno Wierdsma, Richard Doornbos, Jan Salvador van der Ven, and Kevin de Vette. 2017. Teaching Computational Thinking to Primary School Students via Unplugged Programming Lessons. Journal of the European Teacher Education Network 12 (2017).Google Scholar
- Yvon Feaster, Luke Segars, Sally K Wahba, and Jason O Hallstrom. 2011. Teaching CS unplugged in the high school (with limited success). In Proceedings of the 16th annual joint conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education. ACM, 248--252. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Anna Gardeli and Spyros Vosinakis. 2017. Creating the Computer Player: An Engaging and Collaborative Approach to Introduce Computational Thinking by Combining 'Unplugged' Activities with Visual Programming. Italian Journal of Educational Technology 1 (July 2017).Google Scholar
- S. Grover and R. Pea. 2013. Computational Thinking in K-12: A Review of the State of the Field. Educational Researcher 42, 1 (Jan. 2013), 38--43.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Filiz Kalelioglu, Yasemin Gülbahar, and Volkan Kukul. 2016. A Framework for Computational Thinking Based on a Systematic Research Review. Baltic Journal of Modern Computing 4, 3 (2016), 583.Google Scholar
- Lorenz Klopfenstein, Andiy Fedosyeyev, and Alessandro Bogliolo. 2017. BRINGING AN UNPLUGGED CODING CARD GAME TO AUGMENTED REALITY. 9800--9805.Google Scholar
- Lynn Lambert and Heather Guiffre. 2009. Computer science outreach in an elementary school. Journal of Computing Sciences in colleges 24, 3 (2009), 118-- 124. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Linda Liukas. 2015. Hello Ruby: adventures in coding. Feiwel & Friends.Google Scholar
- Sze Yee Lye and Joyce Hwee Ling Koh. 2014. Review on teaching and learning of computational thinking through programming: What is next for K-12? Computers in Human Behavior 41 (2014), 51--61. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Scott B. Morris. 2008. Estimating Effect Sizes From Pretest-Posttest-Control Group Designs. Organizational Research Methods 11, 2 (April 2008), 364--386.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Scott B. Morris and Richard P. DeShon. 2002. Combining effect size estimates in meta-analysis with repeated measures and independent-groups designs. Psychological Methods 7, 1 (2002), 105--125.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Brandon Rodriguez, Kennicutt Stephen, Cyndi Rader, and Tracy Camp. 2017. Assessing Computational Thinking in CS Unplugged Activities. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. ACM, Seattle, Washington, USA, 501--506. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Marcos Román-González, Jesús Moreno-León, and Gregorio Robles. 2017. Complementary Tools for Computational Thinking Assessment. In Proceedings of International Conference on Computational Thinking Education (CTE 2017), S. C Kong, J Sheldon, and K. Y Li (Eds.). The Education University of Hong Kong, 154--159. http://www.eduhk.hk/cte2017/doc/CTE2017Proceedings.pdfGoogle Scholar
- Marcos Román-González. 2015. Computational Thinking Test: Design Guidelines and Content Validation. In Proceedings of the 7th Annual International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies (EDULEARN 2015). IATED, Barcelona, Spain, 2436--2444.Google Scholar
- Marcos Román-González. 2016. Codigoalfabetización y Pensamiento Computacional en Educación Primaria y Secundaria: Validación de un Instrumento y Evaluación de Programas. Ph.D. Dissertation. Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain.Google Scholar
- Marcos Román-González, Juan-Carlos Pérez-González, and Carmen Jiménez-Fernández. 2017. Which cognitive abilities underlie computational thinking? Criterion validity of the Computational Thinking Test. Computers in Human Behavior 72 (July 2017), 678--691. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Sue Sentance and Andrew Csizmadia. 2015. Teachers' perspectives on successful strategies for teaching Computing in school. Paper presented at IFIP TCS 2015 (2015).Google Scholar
- Rivka Taub, Mordechai Ben-Ari, and Michal Armoni. 2009. The effect of CS unplugged on middle-school students' views of CS. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin 41, 3 (2009), 99--103. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Renate Thies and Jan Vahrenhold. 2013. On plugging "unplugged" into CS classes. ACM Press, 365. Google ScholarDigital Library
- R. Unnikrishnan, N. Amrita, Alexander Muir, and Bhavani Rao. 2016. Of Elephants and Nested Loops: How to Introduce Computing to Youth in Rural India. ACM Press, 137--146. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Peter Wallet. 2014. ICT in Education in Asia: A comparative analysis of ICT integration and e-readiness in schools across Asia. Technical Report. UNESCO.Google Scholar
- Peter Wallet. 2015. ICT in Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: A comparative analysis of basic e-readiness in schools. Technical Report. UNESCO.Google Scholar
- Jeannette M. Wing. 2006. Computational thinking. Commun. ACM 49, 3 (March 2006), 33. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. M Wing. 2008. Computational thinking and thinking about computing. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 366, 1881 (Oct. 2008), 3717--3725.Google ScholarCross Ref
Index Terms
- Development of Computational Thinking Skills through Unplugged Activities in Primary School
Recommendations
Teaching how to teach computational thinking
ITiCSE 2018: Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science EducationComputational Thinking is argued to be an essential skill for the workforce of the 21st century. As a skill, Computational Thinking should be taught in all schools, employing computational ideas integrated into other disciplines. Up until now, questions ...
Assessing Computational Thinking in CS Unplugged Activities
SIGCSE '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science EducationComputer Science (CS) Unplugged activities have been deployed in many informal settings to present computing concepts in an engaging manner. To justify use in the classroom, however, it is critical for activities to have a strong educational component. ...
Introducing Computational Thinking through Non-Programming Science Activities
SIGCSE '18: Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science EducationMany programs offer informal experiences in programming for select students who may qualify or whose parents pay fees for attending. Integrating computational thinking (CT) in the formal classroom setting provides equal opportunities to develop valuable ...
Comments