Changes in First-Grade Teachers' Communication of Computational Thinking During an Engineering Design-Based STEM Integration Unit

• In Event: Computational Thinking in Elementary and Secondary Classrooms: Models for Teacher Professional Development

Abstract

Objectives
We are interested in the practices of early elementary teachers implementing the same engineering and computational thinking (CT) instruction in their classrooms across two years. Research question: If and how do first grade teachers’ classroom actions change as they gain experience with teaching CT as integrated with engineering design?

Background
With the integration of engineering and CT into K-12 science instruction, recommendations are being made for teachers to integrate content, pedagogy, and thinking skills from these two areas into their classrooms. CT and engineering have been linked, as Wing (2006) defines CT as an overlap between mathematical and engineering thinking. CT is crucial to the development of engineering habits of mind and in solving engineering problems (NRC, 2011).
Methods & Data Sources
This study utilized a multiple case study design (Yin, 2018) to understand how three first grade teachers integrated CT into their classroom instruction as they implemented the same curriculum across two years. The teachers participated in summer professional development prior to each year’s implementation. The data consisted of video recordings from each classroom for each of the lessons throughout the unit across both years of implementation and audio recordings of the debrief interviews with teachers at the end of the unit for both years. Additionally, field notes and images taken by researchers in the classroom during implementation were used for triangulation.

Results
We observed two major changes in the teachers’ actions from the first year to their second year of implementation. The first was in their use and description of computational thinking, and the second was their increase in connections between CT and engineering design.

Use and Description of Computational Thinking: The primary computational thinking elements emphasized in the curriculum were centered around sequencing, algorithms, debugging, and sorting. Despite including elements of CT within the curriculum unit and covering CT as a focus in the summer workshop, the explicit use of CT terms and explanations around the various CT competencies were used sparingly during year one. In year two, teachers explicitly used CT vocabulary in their instruction and made connections to bigger CT ideas like sequencing, efficiency, identifying patterns, and representing ideas.

Increase in Connections: One of the foundational pieces of this curriculum is that it was designed to highlight the cross-disciplinary nature of CT and engineering by providing lessons that help to facilitate STEM learning through an integrated approach. In year one, the connections of CT was surface level and limited to what was in the curriculum. In year two, the teachers all extended the involvement of prior knowledge in the classroom by making connections to other areas but also encouraged the students to bring up their own connections.

Scholarly Significance
These findings provide insight into how teachers’ actions change over a period of time. The results of this study have the potential to improve professional development programs that integrate CT and engineering and may provide insight on how to encourage veteran teachers to incorporate good integrated STEM and CT practices.

Authors

• Kristina Tank, Iowa State University

• Tamara Jo Moore, Purdue University

• Emily M Haluschak, Purdue University