Exploring computational thinking in initial teacher training: a preliminary study and reflection on practice

The text describes and analyses the introduction of computational thinking in the context of initial teacher education in a university context. The strategy took the framework proposed by Brennan & Resnick (2012) to study and evaluate the development of computational thinking. We designed a pilot study aimed to investigate the adequacy of the dimensions present in the referred framework, in the context of initial teacher training, as well as evaluating the attributed relevance to the development of computational thinking by future teachers as part of their training process. A sample of 44 students participated in the research selected from undergraduate and master's courses. A qualitative research methodology was adopted, using Programming Scratch Language and multimedia projects, reports and focus-group interviews as main data collection techniques. Preliminary results of the pilot-study will be presented and discussed the importance of providing experiences and learning opportunities to the initial teacher training students, appropriate to the development of computational thinking so that students can, as citizens, to prepare for an increasingly demanding and complex society and, as future education professionals, to take fully advantage educational potential of the computers

A Literature Review for the Implementation of Computational Thinking for Ontario K-12 Classrooms

The importance of the problem-solving skills involved in computational thinking has gained significant traction since its introduction. As Ontario seeks to implement coding into the school curriculum, an analysis of previous implementation of computational thinking could provide a framework for which to formulate new curriculum in the province. A literature review was completed to investigate the following three questions: (1) How has computational thinking been implemented into education in a K-12 environment? (2) What barriers will affect the implementation of computational thinking in a K-12 environment? (3) What grade levels are appropriate for implementing the varying competencies of computational thinking? This literature review sheds light on the need for teacher support, the political implications involved in introducing new curriculum, and where computational thinking best fits into current K-12 curriculum

Knowledge Level and Self-Confidence on The Computational Thinking Skills Among Science Teacher Candidates

The trending topic in today's education is computational thinking skills which are used to help to solve complicated problems easier. This study aims to identify the level of knowledge and self-confidence of science teacher candidates (physics and biology) on computational thinking skills. The survey research design was used through a mixed-method approach by combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative study involved 1016 randomly selected groups of science teachers while in the qualitative study, eight science teachers were chosen based on the scores obtained from the quantitative study. The questionnaire was used as a quantitative data collecting technique to analyze descriptive statistics. Then, an interview was used as the qualitative data collecting technique and was analyzed through theme creation. The findings show that science teacher candidates have a high level of knowledge and self-confidence. The implication of this study is very important for teacher candidates because computational thinking can help to facilitate problems solving in everyday life. Teacher candidates need to be given knowledge and understanding of computational thinking skills, to have readiness and self-confidence in facing the challenges of the learning in the 21st-centur

Penerapan Computational Thinking pada Pelajaran Matematika di Madratsah Ibtidaiyah Nurul Islam Sekarbela Mataram

This service activity aims to contribute knowledge to teachers to be able to understand and implement computational thinking in the subjects they are taught. The lack of trained personnel and the lack of understanding in implementing computational thinking gives the Bebras Bureau the opportunity to contribute. This is in line with Mendikbud's desire to implement computational thinking in the children's education curriculum as a provision for more innovative learning to answer the needs of the industrial era 4.0. Computational thinking is the process of thinking in formulating a problem and its solution so that the solution can be represented in a form that can be executed by an information-processing agent. The implementation of the service was carried out on the Mathematics subject teacher at Nurul Islam Mataram Elementary School. The implementation stages consist of planning, preparation, socialization, training, and evaluation. The results of the evaluation showed that most of the teacher participants agreed to apply the results of the training to students and most participants agreed to join the follow-up programs from Bebras. It is hoped that this activity can run continuously and be supported positively by the parties involved

El pensamiento computacional en los marcos de competencia digital docente

Several western countries have introduced educational policies to keep up with needs and demands of the digital society. Digital competence frameworks, particularly for the teaching profession, may fit into this context, which also includes the development of computational thinking, a competency construct that many consider necessary for the empowerment of citizens. The analysis of the approach to computational thinking in these references provides information on competences that need to be contextualised in the framing of the concept, to ensure conditions for its integration in the educational environment. This analysis is the aim of this study, focusing on four frameworks guiding teacher education policies: Standards of ICT competence for teachers (UNESCO), Common Framework for Teaching Digital Competence (INTEF, Spain), European framework for the digital competence of educators: DigCompEdu (EU) and ISTE Standards for Educators: A Guide for Teachers and Other Professionals (ISTE, USA). Content analysis was used as methodology. Results show that there is no consensus on the definition of computational thinking, although the frameworks, implicitly or explicitly, recognize the importance of integrating computational thinking in teaching practice. However, there is no evidence of methodological guidelines for the operationalization of digital teaching skills that can ensure the promotion of computational thinking.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Computational Thinking Conceptions and Misconceptions: Progression of Preservice Teacher Thinking During Computer Science Lesson Planning

This study examined 12 preservice teachers’ understanding of computational thinking while planning and implementing a computational thinking activity for fifth grade students. The preservice teachers were enrolled in an add-on computer education license that would certify them to teach computer courses in addition to their primary major area (11 elementary education majors, 1 secondary social studies education major). The preservice teachers were asked to develop a 2 h instructional project for fifth grade students to build on the computational thinking concepts learned during the “Hour of Code” activity. Data was collected from preservice teachers’ initial proposals, two blog posts, video recordings of in-class discussions, instructional materials, final papers, and a long-term blog post 3 months after the intervention. Results showcased that the process of developing and implementing computational thinking instruction influenced preservice teachers’ understanding of computational thinking. The preservice teachers were able to provide basic definitions of computational thinking as a problem-solving strategy and emphasized that learning computational thinking does not require a computer. On the other hand, some preservice teachers had misconceptions about computational thinking, such as defining computational thinking as equal to algorithm design and suggesting trial and error as an approach to computational problem solving. We provide recommendations for teacher educators to use more directed activities to counteract potential misconceptions about computational thinking

The Development of Computational Thinking in Student Teachers through an Intervention with Educational Robotics

Aim/Purpose This research aims to describe and demonstrate the results of an intervention through educational robotics to improve the computational thinking of student teachers. Background Educational robotics has been increasing in school classrooms for the development of computational thinking and digital competence. However, there is a lack of research on how to prepare future teachers of Kindergarten and Elementary School in the didactic use of computational thinking, as part of their necessary digital teaching competence. Methodology Following the Design-Based Research methodology, we designed an intervention with educational robots that includes unplugged, playing, making and remixing activities. Participating in this study were 114 Spanish university students of education. Contribution This research helps to improve the initial training of student teachers, especially in the field of educational robotics. Findings The student teachers consider themselves digital competent, especially in the dimensions related to social and multimedia aspects, and to a lesser extent in the technological dimension. The results obtained also confirm the effectiveness of the intervention through educational robotics in the development of computational thinking of these students, especially among male students. Recommendations for Practitioners Teacher trainers could introduce robotics following these steps: (1) initiation and unplugged activities, (2) gamified activities of initiation to the programming and test of the robots, (3) initiation activities to Scratch, and (4) design and resolution of a challenge. Recommendation for Researchers Researchers could examine how interventions with educational robots helps to improve the computational thinking of student teachers, and thoroughly analyze gender-differences. Impact on Society Computational thinking and robotics are one of the emerging educational trends. Despite the rise of this issue, there are still few investigations that systematize and collect evidence in this regard. This study allows to visualize an educational intervention that favors the development of the computational thinking of student teachers. Future Research Researchers could evaluate not only the computational thinking of student teachers, but also their didactics, their ability to teach or create didactic activities to develop computational thinking in their future students

Més enllà de la programació i la robòtica educativa : el pensament computacional en l'ensenyament STEAM a infantil i primària

El pensament computacional està guanyant cada vegada més rellevància en el món edu-catiu. Més enllà de l'interès que pot tenir desenvolupar aquesta forma de pensar i resoldre problemes en un context cada cop més informatitzat, el desenvolupament del pensament computacional pot recolzar l'aprenentatge de totes les disciplines que conformen l'STEAM (Science, Technolgoy, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics). El present article, realitzat en el marc del projecte PECOFIM (Pensament Computacional en la Formació Inicial de Mes-tres), ofereix un breu resum de les definicions existents a la literatura sobre pensament computacional, proposant uns indicadors que poden ajudar a identificar-lo i promoure'l a l'escola. Alhora, es presenten exemples reals per tal de treballar el pensament computaci-onal a les etapes d'educació infantil i primària, utilitzant-se els indicadors proposats per tal d'analitzar-les.Computational thinking is gaining increasing relevance in education. Beyond the interest that developing this way of thinking and problem-solving problems may have in an increas-ingly computerized context, the development of computational thinking can support the learning of all STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) disci-plines. In the framework of the PECOFIM project (Computational Thinking in Pre-Service Teacher Training), this paper offers a brief summary of the existing definitions in the litera-ture about computational thinking and proposes indicators that can help to identify it and to promote it in school. At the same time, it introduces real examples for dealing with compu-tational thinking in early childhood and primary education, using the proposed indicators to analyse them

Curricular integration of computational thinking, programming and robotics in basic education: a proposal for teacher training

Today's children are growing up in a complex technological reality, which, in turn, is pushing for the integration of digital technologies in educational contexts. Hence, it becomes necessary to explore how more recent educational approaches to technology can be inclusively integrated into education. Among these innovative approaches are the integration of computational thinking, programming and robotics both in preschool and basic education. Considering the referential of key competences for the current 21th century [1], early training in these areas will contribute to the development of transversal competences [2]. Thus, it is crucial to provide education professionals with the skills and resources for an adequate development of programming and robotics activities in educational contexts. In this paper we present a training action developed within the scope of the project "KML II - Laboratory of technologies and learning of programming and robotics for preschool and primary school". This training action aims to work with early education professionals towards the development of activities with children, using the tools foreseen in this research project. From the work done during the course, trainees should develop an activity plan using programming and robotics technologies, to be implemented in their respective educational contexts. Within this action, trainees are expected to: reflect on the concept of computational thinking and its development in preschool and basic education [3], [4]; collaboratively develop competencies associated with digital literacy and the use of robots and programming languages developed for children [5]; know programming and robotics resources that can be used in preschool and basic education; learn programming basics through applications such as ScratchJr, or others that can support learning development; plan activities according to the curricular contents of the respective level of education, using programming and robotics. Implemented through b-learning, this initiative will also enable educators and teachers to explore and develop distance learning and collaboration skills as well as the use of various support tools and work time management in synchronous and asynchronous sessions. This training is one of the first actions through which KML II project plans to study how to integrate programming and robotics in preschool and basic education, transversally to all areas of knowledge. Within this project, case studies will be carried out at a Portuguese national wide level. This work has two main objectives: a) to propose a training framework for curricular units of technology, in the courses for teacher training in higher education and for in-service training; b) to design a profile of childhood educator and primary school teacher as mediator in the integration of programming and robotics learning in their educational contexts.Project KML II is co-financed by FEDER through the COMPETE 2020 - Operational Thematic Program for Competitiveness and Internationalization (POCI) and national funds through FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under project reference number PTDC/CEDEDG/28710/2017

Introdução do pensamento computacional na formaçao inicial de professores. Questões de avaliação e investigação/ Introducing computational thinking in pre-service teacher education. Issues in evaluation and research.

Abstract — The text describes and analyses the introduction of computational thinking in the context of initial teacher education in a university context through the use of Scracth programming language. The approach is based in theorethical and practical framework in order to study and evaluate the development of computational thinking. We designed a pilot study aimed to investigate the adequacy of the dimensions present in the referred framework, in the context of initial teacher training, as well as evaluating the attributed relevance to the development of computational thinking by future teachers as part of their training process. A sample of 44 students participated in the research selected from undergraduate and master's courses. A qualitative research methodology was adopted, using Programming Scratch Language and multimedia projects, reports and focus-group interviews as main data collection techniques. Results shows the importance of providing experiences and learning opportunities to the initial teacher training students, appropriate to the development of computational thinking so that students can, as citizens, to prepare for an increasingly demanding and complex society and, as future education professionals, to take fully advantage of the fully educational potential of the computers and particularly the computacional environments for children. Resumo — O estudo teve como objetivo investigar os resultados da aplicação prática dos princípios constantes no referencial teórico de avaliação do pensamento computacional em estudantes dos cursos de pós-graduação no quadro da formação inicial de professores bem como avaliar a relevância atribuída ao desenvolvimento do pensamento computacional por futuros professores, como parte de seu processo de formação. Uma amostra de 44 estudantes foi selecionada a partir de cursos de licenciatura e de mestrado que participaram na investigação. Foi implementada uma proposta educativa, com recurso ao ambiente computacional Scratch, decorreu ao longo de um semestre lectivo. Foi adotada uma metodologia de investigação qualitativa, que combina o recurso à análise dos blocos de programação usados pelos estudantes na criação dos projectos e aplicações computacionais, com entrevistas focus-group e análise de conteúdo dos relatórios. Os resultados mostram a utilidade do quadro referencial utilizado na avaliação dos conceitos, das práticas e perspectivas computacionais desenvolvidas. O estudo apresenta evidências do reconhecimento da importância de proporcionar experiências e oportunidades de aprendizagem aos alunos de formação inicial de professores, necessárias ao seu desenvolvimento como cidadãos e como futuros professores, ajudando-os a prepararem-se para um contexto profissional cada vez cada vez mais complexo e exigente bem como a aproveitar plenamente o potencial educativo dos computadores e das tecnologias e recursos digitais no trabalho educativo co