Teaching algorithmic thinking enables students to use their knowledge in various contexts to reuse existing solutions to algorithmic problems. The aim of this study is to examine how students ...recognize which algorithmic concepts can be used in a new situation. We developed a card sorting task and investigated the ways in which secondary school students arranged algorithmic problems (Bebras tasks) into groups using algorithm as a criterion. Furthermore, we examined the students’ explanations for their groupings. The results of this qualitative study indicate that students may recognize underlying algorithmic concepts directly or by identifying similarities with a previously solved problem; however, the direct recognition was more successful. Our findings also include the factors that play a role in students’ recognition of algorithmic concepts, such as the degree of similarity to problems discussed during lessons. Our study highlights the significance of teaching students how to recognize the structure of algorithmic problems.
Background and Context: Computing education is expanding, while the teaching of algorithms is less well studied.
Objective: The aim of this study was to examine teachers' pedagogical content ...knowledge (PCK) for teaching algorithms.
Method: We conducted semi-structured interviews with seven computer science (CS) teachers in upper secondary education (students aged 15-18). The data were analyzed qualitatively.
Findings: We found two patterns of variation in teachers' PCK. First, we detected variation in the teachers' goals related to their view of algorithms: they either focused on "thinking" about the algorithm as an object, or focused on "thinking and making", where the algorithm is also regarded as a program. Second, we found variation in teachers' knowledge about responding to differences between students, which may be generic or topic-specific. Furthermore, our findings reveal that teachers consider class discussions to play a significant role as an instructional method for provoking reflection.
Implications: Our findings regarding PCK may be beneficial for the development of teacher education and professionalization activities for CS teachers.
Although context-based teaching and learning has been investigated extensively in science education, little is known regarding the use of contexts for teaching CS in secondary education.
The aim of ...this study was to examine the characteristics of contexts suitable for teaching algorithms and to investigate teachers' considerations regarding those contexts.
This study examines teachers' practices and reasoning concerning the use of contexts and is based on explorative, empirical research. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with seven CS teachers and analyzed qualitatively.
The results of this study reveal several characteristics of effective contexts for teaching algorithms and show teachers' ambitions to address the variation within the student population when selecting contexts that advance students' algorithmic thinking.
The found characteristics may serve as recommendation for designing contexts. Development of teacher education and professionalization activities may benefit from the discussion of teachers' motives and concerns.
Embedding Computational Thinking (CT) in the context of various school subjects across the curriculum, not only CS or STEM, is receiving increased attention. CT skills can be instrumental in many ...subjects, which makes the integration an opportunity for learning CT but also for deepening subject specific learning. This study focuses on language arts, in particular English as a second language. It investigates digital storytelling as a way to integrate CT, analyzing its impact on students’ learning both of English and of CT, and on students’ attitudes toward the CT integrated English lesson. A class of 8th grade students (average age 13 years) participated in the study. The impact of the CT integrated lessons was investigated using students’ final products, surveys, rubrics, exit tickets and focus group interviews. The results suggest that the digital storytelling approach may improve students’ learning of English and of CT, and that it helped enhancing students’ creativity and collaboration, thus promoting their digital participation.
Integrating computational thinking (CT) into the learning of school subjects is receiving increased attention. Developing students’ CT skills may not only advance their digital literacy but it may ...deepen subject specific learning as well. It is therefore interesting to investigate the learning of CT from a multidisciplinary perspective. This study describes the design of a CT integrated lesson for economics in which computer models in spreadsheets are used to simulate monetary policy. The lesson is structured according to the Use-Modify-Create strategy. The aim of this exploratory study is to evaluate the learning outcomes of this CT integrated lesson and students’ attitudes towards such a lesson. For this purpose, students’ exit tickets, feedback forms, supervisor observations and interviews with students have been analyzed. This qualitative analysis revealed that students perceived the lesson as difficult, especially during the Modify and Create phases. In addition, the results suggest that all phases are dependent on taking enough time to finish the Use phase to get familiar with the computational steps. Several suggestions have been given to improve the lesson, for instance, to use a simpler topic of economics. Furthermore, the analysis of students’ attitudes revealed that connections to CT could be made more explicit rather than implicitly embedded in the instructional strategy.
Learning to apply fundamental algorithmic concepts in a variety of contexts is a challenge in secondary computer science education. The aim of this ongoing study is to investigate what ...recontextualization strategies students use and specifically how students recognize what algorithmic concepts they can use in given situations. A card sorting task was developed in which students match algorithmic problems into given categories. Preliminary findings indicate that students experience difficulties with recognizing the underlying algorithms and use mainly surface features to sort the algorithmic problems.
In context-based education, authentic situations ('contexts') are used as starting points for learning content matter ('concepts'). In this way, contexts provide significance and meaning to the ...concepts taught. The context-based approach has been investigated extensively in the field of science education.
Context-based education has the potential to be a useful strategy in computer science (CS), in particular for teaching and learning of fundamental concepts. Initiatives like Informatik im Kontext confirm that context-based teaching and learning is a promising approach. So far, however, little research has been done on particular aspects of context-based learning in CS, such as the effective selection of contexts, principles for connecting concepts and contexts, and mechanisms for fostering knowledge transfer.
This work-in-progress paper reports on an ongoing qualitative study on context-based teaching of fundamental CS concepts connected to algorithmic thinking. The study focuses on experiences and ideas of teachers, as they play a key role in the adaptation of contexts stemming from a rapidly changing field.
We conducted semi-structured interviews with CS teachers on the above aspects of context-based teaching. The results reveal various ideas that teachers have on the use and effects of context-based learning and raises questions about the selection of contexts.
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