Computational Thinking and Participation in Rural Ag STEM: A Comparative Case Study of Two Middle School Teams

• In Event: STEM Education Across K-12 Contexts

Abstract

This comparative case study investigates how the collaborative dynamics, Computational Participation (CP), of two eighth-grade teams shaped their enactment of disciplinary Computational Thinking (CT) in a rural Ag-STEM program. Qualitative analysis revealed that the team characterized by a high frequency of peer review substantially outperformed the other team, whose fragmented collaboration led to stalled progress on complex tasks. The findings suggest that CP is a key mechanism for enabling CT. Therefore, we argue that educators should explicitly design for and scaffold collaborative practices, not just computational skills, in K-12 STEM.

Authors

• Selcuk Kilinc, Texas A&M University

• Tugce Aldemir, Texas A&M University

• Vivek Sabanwar, Texas A&M University

• Ali Bicer, Texas A&M University

• Donggil Song, Texas A&M University