Fostering Interest and Motivation in Computing Among Rural Middle School Students With Online Programming Environments (Poster 6)

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Fifteen
  In Poster Session: Equity, Community, and Citizenship

Abstract

Computer science (CS) outreach programs, such as programming camps, provide opportunities to generate interest among K-12 students in pursuing a computing occupation, which has been increasing in demand each year. CS outreach programs held in person were either canceled or modified due to COVID-19 and provided an opportunity to explore synchronous online CS outreach programs. We discuss the technological learning environment setup of online programming camps in 2020 and 2021, which included collaborative programming environment, Repl.it, and videoconferencing software, Zoom. We discuss our rationale for our online programming camp’s learning environment and the results of pre- and post- interest/motivation assessments. Our results show that our online programming camp was successful in generating interest/motivation to learn computing.

Authors

• Carla Marcela De Lira, Washington State University
  Presenting Author

• Rachel Min Wong, University of Tennessee
  Presenting Author

• Robert William Danielson, Washington State University - Spokane
  Non-Presenting Author

• Olusola Olalekan Adesope, Washington State University
  Non-Presenting Author