Digital storytelling for non-background learners of Chinese : a case study of a primary school in Australia

With the proliferation of technology, digital storytelling has become a popular strategy used in the second language learning classroom. Despite its widely cited benefits, digital storytelling is not common in the context of teaching and learning Chinese as a foreign language. Adopting a case study methodology, this study aimed to examine the affordances and challenges of using digital storytelling to teach Chinese to non-background learners in an Australian primary school where Chinese language lessons were incorporated into its school curriculum. It also aimed to explore the scaffolding strategies needed to make Chinese learnable when non-background learners created digital stories to develop Chinese language skills. The study involved 32 Year 6 students (aged 11 to 12), and it employed a qualitative approach to analyse the data collected over a school term, which consisted of field notes from participant observations, transcripts of focus group discussion, and students’ artefacts. I argue that digital storytelling was beneficial to the non-background learners, primarily in the retention of Chinese vocabulary and engaging them in the language learning process. Nevertheless, two key challenges were evident when digital storytelling was used to teach Chinese to the non-background learners. There was an overemphasis on technical aspects of the creating of digital stories given the limited ICT competency of the learners. Additionally, the linguistic characteristics of Chinese language created high levels of difficulty for the nonbackground learners to create digital stories entirely in Chinese. Given the challenges in adopting digital storytelling, appropriate scaffolding strategies were judiciously and reflectively developed to enable the non-background learners to use Chinese to create digital stories. The study showed that appropriate levels of scaffolds had to be progressively introduced; social scaffolding was the dominant type of scaffold that was viable, which included timely encouragement and prompting, sequential modelling and imitation, distancing, direction, and concurrent modelling and imitation. The findings of the study contribute to an understanding of how digital storytelling can be an innovative strategy for the teaching and learning of Chinese as a foreign language. It shows that teaching Chinese to non-background learners does not necessarily have to adopt the traditional approach of using rote learning. The research presented is one of the pioneering studies that experiment with technology to promote a more student-centred approach when teaching Chinese to non-background learners in Australia

Introductory programming: a systematic literature review

As computing becomes a mainstream discipline embedded in the school curriculum and acts as an enabler for an increasing range of academic disciplines in higher education, the literature on introductory programming is growing. Although there have been several reviews that focus on specific aspects of introductory programming, there has been no broad overview of the literature exploring recent trends across the breadth of introductory programming. This paper is the report of an ITiCSE working group that conducted a systematic review in order to gain an overview of the introductory programming literature. Partitioning the literature into papers addressing the student, teaching, the curriculum, and assessment, we explore trends, highlight advances in knowledge over the past 15 years, and indicate possible directions for future research

Factors Affecting the Adoption of Peer Instruction in Computing Courses

Peer Instruction (PI) as defined by Mazur, and variations on this pedagogic technique, have been in use in computing courses for about a decade. Despite dozens of educational research publications documenting positive learning effects, improved retention, student acceptance, and effectiveness for large classes; PI does not appear to be widely adopted for computing courses. This paper reports on a three-way investigation into this apparent contradiction. First, the authors reflect on their own adoption, practice, experience, and abandonment of the use of PI in computing courses. Second, we surveyed the literature regarding the use of PI in computing courses and present a summary of the research findings, variations, and extensions to PI used in computing courses. Third, a survey of computing instructors was conducted to gauge the attitude toward PI in computing courses. To add context, this report considers publications documenting usage of PI in STEM courses, and the adoption of other pedagogic techniques in computing. Particular effort was made to identify the reasons computing instructors don’t adopt PI. This report also includes advice to instructors considering adopting PI in computing courses

To Heck With Ethics: Thinking About Public Issues With a Framework for CS Students

This paper proposes that the ethics class in the CS curriculum incorporate the Lawrence Lessig model of regulation as an analytical tool for social issues. Lessig’s use of the notion of architecture, the rules and boundaries of the sometimes artificial world within which social issues play out, is particularly resonant with computing professionals. The CS curriculum guidelines include only ethical frameworks as the tool for our students to engage with societal issues. The regulation framework shows how the market, law, social norms, and architecture can all be applied toward understanding social issues

A Qualitative Phenomenology of Christian Middle School Implementation of Inquiry-Based Science Instruction

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenology study will be to explore curriculum coordinators, teachers, and principals’ implementation of Inquiry-Based Instruction (IBI) in Christian middle school science classes in the central Virginia area. IBI will be referred to as “a teaching method that combines the curiosity of students and the scientific method to enhance the development of critical thinking skills while learning science” (Warner & Myers, 2008, p.3). A qualitative phenomenology study will be made to consider the requirements and implementation of IBI in the Christian middle schools as compared to the requirements and implementation of IBI in the National Science Education Standard (NSES). Curriculum coordinators, teachers, and principals, and participated in this study from five Christian middle schools in the central Virginia area. The guiding theories include John Dewey’s (1948) Constructivism, Lev Vygotsky’s (1998) Social Constructivism, and William Glasser’s (2005) Choice Theory as they relate to the beliefs curriculum coordinators, teachers, and principals have regarding the implementation of IBI. A primary research question for this study is, “If research supports successful outcomes of IBI, then how and why do Christian CMSST, principals, and curriculum coordinators implement or not implement IBI?” Interviews, classroom observations, and document reviews were used for triangulation and data collection. The data analysis used in this study were completed by using Moustakas’ (1994) seven step thematic coding derived from the observations, interview transcriptions, and school documents in the form of lesson plans and objectives (Merriam, 2009; Moustakas, 1994)

Creative Computation in High School

In this paper we describe the success of bringing Creative Computation via Processing into two very different high schools that span the range of possibilities of grades 9-12 in American education. Creative Computation is an emerging discipline that requires a thorough grounding in both media arts and computing. We report on how contextualized computing that supports integration of media arts, design, and computer science can successfully attract and motivate students to learn foundations of programming and come back for more. The work of two high school teachers with divergent pedagogical styles is presented. They successfully adapted a college-level Creative Computation curriculum to their individual school cultures providing a catalyst for significant increases in total enrollment as well as female participation in high school computer science

Creative Computation in High School

In this paper we describe the success of bringing Creative Computation via Processing into two very different high schools that span the range of possibilities of grades 9-12 in American education. Creative Computation is an emerging discipline that requires a thorough grounding in both media arts and computing. We report on how contextualized computing that supports integration of media arts, design, and computer science can successfully attract and motivate students to learn foundations of programming and come back for more. The work of two high school teachers with divergent pedagogical styles is presented. They successfully adapted a college-level Creative Computation curriculum to their individual school cultures providing a catalyst for significant increases in total enrollment as well as female participation in high school computer science

Creative Computation in High School

In this paper we describe the success of bringing Creative Computation via Processing into two very different high schools that span the range of possibilities of grades 9-12 in American education. Creative Computation is an emerging discipline that requires a thorough grounding in both media arts and computing. We report on how contextualized computing that supports integration of media arts, design, and computer science can successfully attract and motivate students to learn foundations of programming and come back for more. The work of two high school teachers with divergent pedagogical styles is presented. They successfully adapted a college-level Creative Computation curriculum to their individual school cultures providing a catalyst for significant increases in total enrollment as well as female participation in high school computer science

To Heck With Ethics: Thinking About Public Issues With a Framework for CS Students

This paper proposes that the ethics class in the CS curriculum incorporate the Lawrence Lessig model of regulation as an analytical tool for social issues. Lessig’s use of the notion of architecture, the rules and boundaries of the sometimes artificial world within which social issues play out, is particularly resonant with computing professionals. The CS curriculum guidelines include only ethical frameworks as the tool for our students to engage with societal issues. The regulation framework shows how the market, law, social norms, and architecture can all be applied toward understanding social issues