Unplugged CT as Essential Learning Practices: Examples from Elementary Contexts

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This session explores the integration of unplugged computational thinking (CT) across disciplinary boundaries in diverse educational contexts, including elementary classrooms and professional development settings. Drawing on practitioner-researcher collaborations, we present a series of empirically grounded cases that illuminate the affordances and tensions of embedding CT within existing curricular frameworks. Teachers and practitioners will share situated accounts of their learning and implementation processes, offering insight into how CT can function as a generative heuristic rather than an isolated skillset. These accounts challenge disciplinary siloing by demonstrating how integrative, practice-based approaches can reconfigure what is possible in teaching and learning. The session foregrounds the epistemic value of collaborative inquiry and highlights the pedagogical potential of relational, cross-contextual engagements with CT.

Sub Unit

• Division K - Teaching and Teacher Education / Division K - Section 01: Teaching and Teacher Education in the Content Areas

Chair

• Eva Skuratowicz, Southern Oregon University

Papers

• Decomposition Demystified: An Exploratory Learning Progression for Integrating Decomposition in Elementary School Lessons - Maggie Vanderberg, Southern Oregon University; Dylana Garfas, Ashland School District

• Hidden Frameworks: What Summaries of Goldilocks Reveal About the Process of Abstraction - Eping Hung, Southern Oregon University

• Once Upon an Algorithm: Computational Thinking Through the Stories We Tell - Kelly Renae Martin, Ashland School District; Gladys Krause, College of William & Mary

• Where is Everybody in the Everybody Books?: Representation in K-5 Picture Books - Trish Yoshiko Dorr, Ashland School District

• Lessons Learned: Integrating Computational Thinking in Multilingual Classrooms Across Contexts - Jennifer Mohatt, Phoenix Talent School District; Dylana Garfas, Ashland School District

Session Organizer

• Gladys Krause, College of William & Mary

Discussant

• Jill Hubbard, Oregon State University - Cascades