Supporting Children’s Problem-Solving in Computational Thinking Tasks: The Effects of Paper-Based Metacognitive Guides

• In Event: Innovative Strategies for Teaching Computational Thinking and Computer Science: From Robotics to Integrated Learning Models

Abstract

Providing elementary school children with guidance and support for problem-solving is critical in problem-based learning contexts where they learn computational thinking (CT) working with Educational Robotics. While teachers are highly adept at providing such support, class sizes are often a challenge to how well they can attend to all children. We developed paper-based visual prompts with tasks and compared their effect on CT learning gains and problem-solving processes with teacher metacognitive support. We find differences in how much time children spend on specific problem-solving stages (e.g., idea generation and prototyping). Children receiving the paper-based support also show higher gains on a test of CT practices than those supported by the teacher.

Authors

• Youjung Jung, Northern Illinois University

• Wei-Chen Hung, Northern Illinois University

• Fortunata Msilu, Northern Illinois University

• Jeonghwa Oh, Northern Illinois University

• Adam Hussein, Northern Illinois University

• Michael Tscholl, Northern Illinois University