Background/purpose: This research explores the use of robotics to facilitate the learning of computer programming among non-specialist pre-service teachers with no prior programming experience. With the increasing demand for 21st-century teaching competencies, it is essential to equip future educators with computational thinking (CT) skills, even…

The integration of visual programming in early formal education has been found to promote computational thinking of students. Teachers' intuitive perspectives about optimal learning processes -- "folk psychology" -- impact their perspectives about teaching "folk pedagogy" and play a significant role in integrating educational…

By integrating computational thinking (CT) based mathematical reasoning with early childhood education through programming a dinosaur game in Scratch, this study aims to enhance the pedagogical skills of pre-service teachers by using learning objects (LOs). Also, explores frameworks for LOs construction to align with pedagogical goals, emphasizing…

In computer science education at school, computational thinking has been an emerging topic over the last decade. Even though, computational thinking is interpreted and integrated in classrooms in different ways, an identification process about what computational thinking is about has been in progress among computer science school-teachers and…

Most studies suggest that students develop computational thinking (CT) through learning programming. However, when the target of CT is decoupled from programming, emerging evidence challenges the assertion of CT transferability from programming. In this study, CT was operationalized in everyday problem-solving contexts in a learning experiment (n…

Assessment plays an important role in education and can both guide and motivate learning. Assessment can, however, be carried out with different aims: providing the students with feedback that supports the learning (formative assessment) and judging to which degree the students have fulfilled the intended learning outcomes (summative assessment).…

Background/purpose: In terms of computational thinking core facets, algorithmic thinking is a key competency applicable not only in Computer Science but also in aspects of daily life. Considering the global phenomenon of gender stereotypes with regards to the academic and professional orientation in STEM fields, we focused on investigating the…

The role of programming in computing education for children has grown rapidly in recent years with the proliferation of specially designed programming tools, which is grounded on Seymour Papert's theoretical work in Constructionism. Studies show that some children can develop computational thinking skills and practices with programming activities…

This article discusses the design and implementation of a new programming tool for Greek novices as a means to improve introductory programing instruction in Greece. We implemented Koios, a new highly interactive and visual programming tool for Greek novices, based on the body of research in the field of psychology of programming. The main…

The purpose of this study was to design and develop a theory-based summary writing online tool, named Summary Writing-Pal (SW-PAL), to assist English as a second language students in improving their summary writing. It also evaluates the effectiveness of SW-PAL in enhancing the students' summary writing performance and examines their perceptions…

This paper presents a pilot study on the evaluation of instruments for data gathering for an epistemic game development competition for high school students. The initial results show that a significant percentage of the students who participated in the competition appear to exhibit a skillset of professional attitude, software-related knowledge,…

Constructionism, first introduced by Seymour Papert in 1980, is a framework for learning to understand something by making an artifact for and with other people. A core goal of constructionists is to respect learners as creators, to enable them to engage in making meaning for themselves through construction, and to do this by democratizing access…

Computing is being introduced into the curriculum in many countries. Teachers' perspectives enable us to discover what challenges this presents, and also the strategies teachers claim to be using successfully in teaching the subject across primary and secondary education. The study described in this paper was carried out in the UK in 2014 where…

The purpose of this study was to design a problem based collaborative learning environment supported by dynamic web technologies and to examine students' views about this learning environment. The study was designed as a qualitative research. Some 36 students who took an Object Oriented Programming I-II course at the department of computer…

"Game Maker" is widely used in UK secondary schools, yet under-researched in that context. This paper presents the findings of a qualitative case study that explores how authoring computer games using "Game Maker" can support the learning of basic programming concepts in a mainstream UK secondary setting. The research draws on…