Computing science which focuses on computational thinking, has been a compulsory subject in the Thai science curriculum since 2018. This study is an initial program to explore how and to what extend computing science that focused on STEM education learning approach can develop pre-service teachers' computational thinking. The online STEM-based activity-Computing Science Teacher Training (CSTT) Program was developed into a two-day course. The computational thinking test (CTT) data indicated pre-service teachers’ fundamental skills of computational thinking: decomposition, algorithms, pattern recognition, pattern generalization and abstractions. The post-test mean score was higher than the pre-test mean score from 9.27 to 10.9 or 13.58 percentage change. The content analysis indicated that there were five key characteristics founded in the online training program comprised: (1) technical support such as online meeting program, equipment, trainer ICT skills (2) learning management system such as Google Classroom, creating classroom section in code.org (3) the link among policy, curriculum and implementation (4) pre-service teachers' participation and (5) rigor and relevance of how to integrate the applications of computing science into the classroom.
Nowadays, solving problems is substantial for the social relationship human. Computational Thinking (CT) emerges as an interdisciplinary thought process encompassing mental abilities to help students solve and understand problems. Researchers invest in the methodological proposal of activities aimed at CT stimulation, educational approaches, and the conception of technologies that support these activities’ execution. Educational Robotics (ER) is one of these technologies that stand out at different educational levels to favor teamwork, logical thinking, and creativity, skills intimately articulated with the computing paradigm. The main objective of this work is to investigate the impact of ER activities on CT development and subjects learning in the Technical and Vocational Education in High School. For this, we accomplished a study of intervention research type with students and teachers analyzing quantitative and qualitative aspects. The results indicate that the introduction of ER can favor students in the development of CT skills and learning High School subjects.
Computational thinking (CT) has been introduced in primary schools worldwide. However, rich classroom-based evidence and research on how to assess and support students’ CT through programming are particularly scarce. This empirical study investigates 4th grade students’ (N = 57) CT in a comparatively comprehensive and fine-grained manner by assessing their Scratch projects (N = 325) with a framework that was revised from previous studies to aim towards enhancing CT. The results demonstrate in detail the various coding patterns and code constructs the students programmed in assorted projects throughout a programming course and the extent to which they had conceptual encounters with CT. Notably, the projects indicated CT diversely, and the students altogether encountered dissimilar areas in CT. To target the acquisition of CT broadly, manifold programming activities are necessary to introduce in the classroom. Furthermore, we discuss the possibilities of applying the assessment framework employed herein to support CT education through Scratch in classrooms.
In this study, effectiveness of a computer science course at the secondary school level is investigated through a holistic approach addressing the dimensions of instructional content design, development, implementation and evaluation framed according to ADDIE instructional design model where evaluation part constituted the research process for the current study. The process has initiated when the computer science curriculum had major revisions in order to provide in-service teachers with necessary support and guidance. The study is carried through as a project, which lasted more than one year and both quantitative and qualitative measures were used through a sequential explanatory method approach. The intention was to investigate the whole process in detail in order to reveal the effectiveness of the process and the products. In this regard, not only teachers' perceptions but also students' developments in their perceptions of academic achievement and computational thinking, as well as correlations between the computational thinking sub-factors were investigated. The findings showed that the instructional materials and activities developed within the scope of the study, positively affected the computational thinking and academic achievement of students aged 10 and 12 years old. The teachers' weekly feedbacks regarding application structures and implementation processes were also supported the findings and revealed some more details that will be useful both for instructional designers and teachers.
This work investigates the effect of computer use in the memory process in young and adults under the Perceptual and Memory experimental conditions. The memory condition involved the phases acquisition of information and recovery, on time intervals (2 min, 24 hours and 1 week) on situations of pre and post-test (before and after the participants took part on a Basic Computing course), in which the participants studied the map of Brazil during 7 minutes and the estimates of different areas of Brazilian states were performed according to the magnitude estimation method, without the presence of the map. On the Perceptual condition, the estimates were made in the presence of the Brazilian map. The study made possible to verify that the use of a computer, as a new activity enables a differentiation on the memory process in relation to the different experimental conditions proposed and to the time intervals used between acquisition, processing and information recovery, showing that the use of a computer as a pedagogical tool may promote the improvement of the memory process in academic activities.