research-article

Teaching Computer Science to 5-7 year-olds: An initial study with Scratch, Cubelets and unplugged computing

Authors:

Sarah ClinchAuthors Info & Claims

WiPSCE '15: Proceedings of the Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education

Pages 55 - 60

https://doi.org/10.1145/2818314.2818340

Published: 09 November 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Changes to school curriculums increasingly require the introduction of computer science concepts to younger children. This practical report compares three existing tools for teaching computer science concepts: unplugged computing, tangible computing and MIT's Scratch. We specifically focus on the use of these tools for school pupils aged 5--7. We describe a comparative study with 28 pupils from three rural UK primary schools that explores engagement with, and effectiveness of, each tool. As far as we are aware this is the first such comparative study of its kind. We demonstrate that the studied tools can be used to successfully introduce core computer science concepts to pupils as young as 5 years of age, that the methods used by teachers to deliver computing curriculums may greatly impact the learning outcomes, and that particular care needs to be taken to ensure that pupils focus on learning concepts rather than learning tools.

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Cited By

Tank KMoore TOttenbreit-Leftwich AWafula ZChu LYang S(2024)Pathways to inclusive early childhood computational thinking education: unveiling young students’ strategies with multiple representationsJournal of Research on Technology in Education10.1080/15391523.2024.2410194(1-24)Online publication date: 9-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2024.2410194
Severance SMiller EKrajcik J(2024)IF science AND making AND computing: Insights for project-based learning and primary science curriculum designStudies in Science Education10.1080/03057267.2024.2397300(1-65)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/03057267.2024.2397300
Pan YAdams EKetterlin-Geller LLarson EClark C(2024)Enhancing middle school students’ computational thinking competency through game-based learningEducational technology research and development10.1007/s11423-024-10400-x72:6(3391-3419)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-024-10400-x
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Teaching Computer Science to 5-7 year-olds: An initial study with Scratch, Cubelets and unplugged computing
1. Applied computing
  1. Enterprise computing
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education

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Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

WiPSCE '15: Proceedings of the Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education

November 2015

149 pages

ISBN:9781450337533

DOI:10.1145/2818314

Conference Chairs:
Judith Gal-Ezer
The Open University of Israel
,
Sue Sentance
King's College London & Computing At School
,
Jan Vahrenhold
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

Copyright © 2015 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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King's College London: King's College London
ACM: Association for Computing Machinery

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 09 November 2015

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WiPSCE '15

WiPSCE '15: Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education

November 9 - 11, 2015

London, United Kingdom

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Overall Acceptance Rate 104 of 279 submissions, 37%

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Cited By

Tank KMoore TOttenbreit-Leftwich AWafula ZChu LYang S(2024)Pathways to inclusive early childhood computational thinking education: unveiling young students’ strategies with multiple representationsJournal of Research on Technology in Education10.1080/15391523.2024.2410194(1-24)Online publication date: 9-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2024.2410194
Severance SMiller EKrajcik J(2024)IF science AND making AND computing: Insights for project-based learning and primary science curriculum designStudies in Science Education10.1080/03057267.2024.2397300(1-65)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/03057267.2024.2397300
Pan YAdams EKetterlin-Geller LLarson EClark C(2024)Enhancing middle school students’ computational thinking competency through game-based learningEducational technology research and development10.1007/s11423-024-10400-x72:6(3391-3419)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-024-10400-x
Simpson ABorowski RColquhoun AHu Z(2024)Unplugged: Planting and Growing the Seed of Replacement in Four-Year Old-ChildrenEarly Childhood Education Journal10.1007/s10643-024-01746-1Online publication date: 28-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-024-01746-1
Lin YLiao HWeng SDong W(2024)Comparing the effects of plugged-in and unplugged activities on computational thinking development in young childrenEducation and Information Technologies10.1007/s10639-023-12181-x29:8(9541-9574)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10639-023-12181-x
YILMAZ TİZMİRLİ S(2023)Effect of unplugged and plugged coding activities on secondary school students’ computational thinking skillsJournal of Educational Technology and Online Learning10.31681/jetol.13753356:4(1180-1193)Online publication date: 31-Dec-2023
https://doi.org/10.31681/jetol.1375335
DURMUŞOĞLU SALTALI NBAYRAK ÖZMUTLU EERGAN SÖZSOY GKORKMAZ Ö(2023)An Evaluation of the Effect of Activity-Based Computational Thinking Education on Teachers: A Case StudyParticipatory Educational Research10.17275/per.23.26.10.210:2(1-25)Online publication date: 30-Mar-2023
https://doi.org/10.17275/per.23.26.10.2
Su YWang SLiu X(2023)Using Epistemic Network Analysis to Explore Primary School Students’ Computational Thinking in Pair Programming LearningJournal of Educational Computing Research10.1177/0735633123121056062:2(559-593)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1177/07356331231210560
Miková KKubincová ZStenová B(2023)Appropriateness of a New Programmable Robotics Kit – Preliminary Results (Discussion Paper)Proceedings of the 23rd Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research10.1145/3631802.3631822(1-12)Online publication date: 13-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3631802.3631822
Macann VYadav AChoppella VPhatak DLuxton-Reilly ACraig M(2023)Debugging Beyond the Code: Teachers' Perceptions of Debugging as a CT Practice Impacting Interdisciplinary Teaching and LearningProceedings of the ACM Conference on Global Computing Education Vol 110.1145/3576882.3617919(119-125)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3576882.3617919
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