Affordances of Teaching Computational Thinking through Problem Solving and Heritage in Rural Contexts (Poster 7)

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

Abstract

Objectives: We report on why it might be that nine rural K-12 teachers, including six reading and music elementary school teachers, none of whom had prior professional development in computing education, became excited about integrating computational thinking (CT) into their classes after a week-long summer training. We investigated how the emphasis on problem-based learning and heritage may have motivated teachers, in more and different ways relative to the more activity/tool-centric CT professional development (PD) that we’ve offered.
Background: Common approaches to elementary CT PD are through introducing example activities and tools that can be integrated into content area classrooms. But in the rural context that we are working in, this approach alone often leads teachers to see CT as a “nice-to-have” learning experience, rather than a “must-have.” In our research-practice partnership with rural two districts, we’ve tried to tackle this through creating a new kind of PD: a problem-based CT workshop.
Methods & Data Sources: Our data sources include PD artifacts, observation notes and evaluation reports, which we examined to compare: What activities in the PD supported teachers to learn CT and which (if any) likely supported teachers to imagine themselves as contributing to important local vision(s) of the future (Jenkins et al., 2020)? The comparison was between our new problem-based CT lesson design workshop and our “traditional” (activity/tool-focused) CT workshop.
Results: In the problem-based CT workshop, teachers learned about how to integrate CT in their content areas through (1) hearing examples of how other teachers integrated CT in problem-based units, (2) direct instruction and self-reflection on how to integrate CT into design thinking, (3) attending an hour-long hands-on session on simple ways to integrate CT into content areas (e.g., glyphs, Ozobots, Makey Makey), and (4) design sessions for their problem-based unit. In the traditional CT workshop, only approach #3 was taken.
The problem-based CT workshop also supported teachers to envision possible futures for their students and region through talks about innovations and innovators in the community today, including young graduates of the districts who are now serving as local engineers and creatives. It helped teachers imagine themselves as educators of future problem-solvers, and bearers of heritage and resourcefulness. It also included messages from multiple people (fellow-teachers, program leaders and guest instructors) that they have agency and permission to help shape the students’ and community’s futures through experimenting with their CT-integrated lesson design. Our traditional CT workshop did not include such visioning opportunities.

Surveys, exit tickets and problem-based lesson drafts suggested that visioning opportunities served as an essential motivator for teachers to incorporate CT into their lessons.
Scholarly Significance:
This paper presents a novel and promising approach to CT PD for elementary teachers in contexts where heritage, kinship and resourceful problem-solving are valued. This design-based method of professional learning may be effective, particularly in rural communities and Indigenous and other ethnic/cultural communities where CT can strike teachers as culturally foreign and the deep “why” for it unclear.

Authors

• Emi Iwatani, Digital Promise

• Merijke Coenraad, Digital Promise Global

• Kyle Dunbar, Michigan State University