Lessons Learned: Integrating Computational Thinking in Multilingual Classrooms Across Contexts

• In Event: Unplugged CT as Essential Learning Practices: Examples from Elementary Contexts

Abstract

As computational thinking (CT) continues to gain traction as a necessary component of K–12 education, questions about how to meaningfully integrate CT into existing curricula—especially in linguistically diverse classrooms—remain underexplored. In this paper, we present a collaborative reflection between two educators who implemented CT in multilingual classroom settings with differing demographics, instructional structures, and institutional supports. One teacher works in a dual-language elementary classroom serving Spanish-English bilingual students in a predominantly Latinx community. The other teaches in an inclusive small group setting classroom that supports emergent multilinguals from multiple language backgrounds, including Thai, Chinese, and Punjabi within a more traditional English-dominant setting. Together, we examine what it means to integrate CT in ways that are responsive to students’ linguistic resources, lived experiences, and disciplinary identities.
Drawing from practitioner inquiry and case study methodologies (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009; Stake, 1995), we analyze two parallel cycles of CT-focused lessons across different content areas. Each cycle included lesson planning, implementation, student work artifacts, and post-lesson reflections. We use a shared framework for CT (drawing from Wing, 2006; Weintrop et al., 2016) while grounding our approach in translanguaging pedagogy (García & Wei, 2014) and sociocultural views of learning. Our goal is not to offer prescriptive solutions but to articulate the situated challenges and affordances of engaging multilingual learners in CT practices across varied educational ecologies.
Our findings highlight several cross-cutting themes. First, we found that multimodal and multilingual entry points into CT tasks—such as storyboarding, oral coding explanations, and dual-language instructions—supported students in expressing computational thinking while drawing on their full linguistic repertoires. Second, we discuss the tensions that emerged around the perceived “language of code” as English-dominant, and how this tension was navigated differently in each classroom. Third, we reflect on the professional uncertainties we faced as teachers learning to implement CT while also attending to equity, linguistic inclusion, and curricular coherence.
Through our comparative lens, we argue that the integration of CT in multilingual classrooms is not merely a technical or curricular matter but a deeply relational and situated pedagogical act. We show how teachers’ decision-making was shaped by institutional constraints, local language policies, and students’ community knowledge. We also reflect on the collaborative process itself as a generative professional learning model, offering a structure for how teachers across differing contexts can work together to explore shared challenges and develop contextually grounded practices.
This paper contributes to the growing body of literature on CT and equity by foregrounding the voices and insights of practicing educators. We offer practical tools, reflections, and guiding questions that may support other educators and teacher educators interested in implementing CT in multilingual settings. In doing so, we invite broader conversations about how CT, as a cross-disciplinary practice, can be reimagined in ways that affirm students’ languages, identities, and capabilities.

Authors

• Jennifer Mohatt, Phoenix Talent School District

• Dylana Garfas, Ashland School District