Elementary Teachers’ Infusion of CT in Science Lessons: Efforts and Opportunities (Poster 6)

• In Event: Integrating Computational Thinking in K-12: Strategies for Elementary Education and Teacher Development

Abstract

Objectives: We aim to better understand how CT can be infused in elementary science by studying how teachers use CT practices in their enacted science lessons, the nature and range of those opportunities, and what those enactments indicate about promising ways teachers might incorporate CT in elementary science in the future.
Background: This project engaged in professional development with two cohorts of teachers in low-income schools in the upper Midwest to infuse CT into their math and science lessons using the CT practices of abstraction, decomposition, patterns, and debugging. The research team worked with teachers to infuse these practices in their previously-existing science curricula, building on their ideas about what would work best in their classrooms.
Methods & Data Sources: Researchers video-recorded ten teachers’ CT-infused science lessons with students. Analysis of these classroom videos determined how CT was used in the lessons including (1) explicit or implicit naming of CT practices; (2) use as a planning tool, reflective tool, or for advancing science/engineering work, and (3) the role CT played in sensemaking. We also analyzed (4) the nature and goals of the science activity in the lesson (e.g., engineering design, science investigation, student problem-solving, class sense-making discussion, etc.)
Results: Our analysis revealed that debugging was the most commonly emphasized CT practice in teachers’ science lessons - a primary focus of 7 of the 10 lessons with only one recorded lesson not including debugging at all. Debugging was a natural fit for teachers when engaging students in designing a science experiment, investigation, application, or engineering design of the science ideas. There were fewer instances of teachers emphasizing the other three CT practices (decomposing, abstraction, and patterns) in the other lessons with two exceptions. We also found several teachers who used all of the CT practices as a reflection/metacognitive thinking tool in their science lesson activities. Additionally, sometimes teachers explicitly engaged students in calling out and thinking about the CT practices (7 of the 10 lessons), and other times, it was implicit in the design and enactment of the lessons (3 of the 10 lessons). Overall, it seems that the teachers used the computational thinking lens to engage in metacognitively and epistemically rich conversations with students about what and why they were engaged in their science activities and how to go about doing so. These are promising opportunities. Nonetheless, we continue to work with teachers to determine transdisciplinary approaches that meaningfully advance computational and scientific literacy at the same time. We are currently working on ways to incorporate CT in scientific data collection and analysis, engineering design, and scientific modeling while using plugged and unplugged platforms as strategic possibilities.
Scholarly Significance: This paper presents the results of multiple elementary school teachers integrating CT in science lessons. We build on the knowledge that exists of possibilities for integrating science and CT (e.g., Cabrera et al., 2021) to figure out meaningful ways to integrate CT that advance both scientific and computational literacy and more effectively bridge CT with the NGSS.

Authors

• Christina V. Schwarz, Michigan State University

• Wanjoo Ahn, Michigan State University

• Aman Yadav, Michigan State University

• Zac Opps, Concord Consortium