STEM Community Chairs Progress Updates Spring 2016

The following is a brief update of the activities and efforts being undertaken by UNO’s Dr. George and Sally Haddix Community Chair of STEM Education as being held by Dr. Neal Grandgenett. The goal of this position is: Position Goal: To organize, lead and inspire collaborative STEM initiatives at UNO, that cross colleges and disciplines, and that aggressively position UNO to be a true national leader in interdisciplinary STEM programs. (Curriculum, Capacity, Collaboration

Increasing the Enrolment of Women in IT at Fanshawe College

Women comprise over 50% of the population of Canada. At Fanshawe College, where I am a female professor in the School of Information Technology, approximately 95% of the students in my classes are male. The number of women enrolling in Information Technology (IT) programs has been declining in recent years, although enrolment of females in other post-secondary programs is increasing. Technology is becoming ever-present in the lives of young people, including girls and young women, yet education and employment in technology fields are not attracting women

Learning to communicate computationally with Flip: a bi-modal programming language for game creation

Teaching basic computational concepts and skills to school children is currently a curricular focus in many countries. Running parallel to this trend are advances in programming environments and teaching methods which aim to make computer science more accessible, and more motivating. In this paper, we describe the design and evaluation of Flip, a programming language that aims to help 11–15 year olds develop computational skills through creating their own 3D role-playing games. Flip has two main components: 1) a visual language (based on an interlocking blocks design common to many current visual languages), and 2) a dynamically updating natural language version of the script under creation. This programming-language/natural-language pairing is a unique feature of Flip, designed to allow learners to draw upon their familiarity with natural language to “decode the code”. Flip aims to support young people in developing an understanding of computational concepts as well as the skills to use and communicate these concepts effectively. This paper investigates the extent to which Flip can be used by young people to create working scripts, and examines improvements in their expression of computational rules and concepts after using the tool. We provide an overview of the design and implementation of Flip before describing an evaluation study carried out with 12–13 year olds in a naturalistic setting. Over the course of 8 weeks, the majority of students were able to use Flip to write small programs to bring about interactive behaviours in the games they created. Furthermore, there was a significant improvement in their computational communication after using Flip (as measured by a pre/post-test). An additional finding was that girls wrote more, and more complex, scripts than did boys, and there was a trend for girls to show greater learning gains relative to the boys

BlockyTalky: A Physical and Distributed Computer Music Toolkit for Kids

NIME research realizes a vision of performance by means of computational expression, linking body and space to sound and imagery through eclectic forms of sensing and interaction. This vision could dramatically impact computer science education, simultaneously modernizing the field and drawing in diverse new participants. We describe our work creating a NIME-inspired computer music toolkit for kids called BlockyTalky; the toolkit enables users to create networks of sensing devices and synthesizers. We offer findings from our research on student learning through programming and performance. We conclude by suggesting a number of future directions for NIME researchers interested in education

Programming Environments for Children: Creating a Language that Grows with you

Recent efforts have increased the number of elementary and middle schools teaching computer science — but do they have the right tools for the job? Elementary school teachers are usually responsible for teaching all subjects, and often do not have a background or training in computer science. Fourth through sixth grade students are still developing their math and reading skills as well as learning how to type and use computers. Fortunately, computer science is one of the only domains that can adapt to meet the needs of the user. Unlike math or physics, computer science has few constants; computers, languages, and development environments have changed over the last decades and will continue to evolve. How can programming languages and environments better meet the needs of upper elementary classes learning computer science? This paper looks at designing block-based programming environments for upper elementary school students as a part of a larger research study on early computer science education. Block-based programming environments let children create complex, visual programs without worrying about compiling or syntax errors. This paper describes the research studies completed in the design and implementation of block-based programming environments created alongside the development of KELP-CS, a computational thinking curriculum for 4th — 6th grade. Both the programming environment and curriculum were piloted in schools across California as part of a design-based research project

Lesson Plan and Workbook for Introducing Python Game Programming to Support the Advancing Out-of-School Learning in Mathematics and Engineering (AOLME) Project

In recent years, research has started to show a distressing trend in the world of science, technology, engineering, and mathematic (STEM) fields. It has become apparent that students from under-represented groups get little to no experience or practice in the field of engineering. This apparent lack of exposure to engineering knowledge and practice is likely to be the cause as to why students from under-represented groups may not become interested in engineering careers. The Advancing Out-of-School Learning in Mathematics and Engineering (AOLME) project was created specifically for providing integrated mathematics and engineering experiences to middle-school students from under-represented groups. The thesis presents a new approach to introducing game programming to middle-school students that have undergone AOLME-training while still maintaining a fun and relaxed environment. The thesis provides a discussion of three different educational, visual-programming environments that are also designed for younger programmers and provides motivation for the proposed approach based on Python.The thesis details interactive activities that are intended for supporting the students to develop their own games in Python

A Systematic Review of Studies on Educational Robotics

There has been a steady increase in the number of studies investigating educational robotics and its impact on academic and social skills of young learners. Educational robots are used both in and out of school environments to enhance K–12 students’ interest, engagement, and academic achievement in various fields of STEM education. Some prior studies show evidence for the general benefits of educational robotics as being effective in providing impactful learning experiences. However, there appears to be a need to determine the specific benefits which have been achieved through robotics implementation in K–12 formal and informal learning settings. In this study, we present a systematic review of the literature on K–12 educational robotics. Based on our review process with specific inclusion and exclusion criteria, and a repeatable method of systematic review, we found 147 studies published from the years 2000 to 2018. We classified these studies under five themes: (1) general effectiveness of educational robotics; (2) students’ learning and transfer skills; (3) creativity and motivation; (4) diversity and broadening participation; and (5) teachers’ professional development. The study outlines the research questions, presents the synthesis of literature, and discusses findings across themes. It also provides guidelines for educators, practitioners, and researchers in areas of educational robotics and STEM education, and presents dimensions of future research

Using Pedagogical Tools to Help Hispanics be Successful in Computer Science

Irish, Rodger, Using Pedagogical Tools to Help Hispanics Be Successful in Computer Science. Master of Science (MS), July 2017, 68 pp., 4 tables, 2 figures, references 48 titles. Computer science (CS) jobs are a growing field and pay a living wage, but the Hispanics are underrepresented in this field. This project seeks to give an overview of several contributing factors to this problem. It will then explore some possible solutions to this problem and how a combination of some tools (teaching methods) can create the best possible outcome. It is my belief that this approach can produce successful Hispanics to fill the needed jobs in the CS field. Then the project will test its hypothesis. I will discuss the tools used to measure progress both in the affective and the cognitive domains. I will show how the decision to run a Computer Club was reached and the results of the research. The conclusion will summarize the results and tell of future research that still needs to be done