Introducing Computational Thinking Unplugged in Early Childhood Education Within the Context of Physical and Natural Science Courses

In the contemporary digital era, introducing computational thinking concepts is considered an imperative need at all stages of schooling, since they are inextricably linked to skills applicable and beneficial in everyday life. This chapter presents a novel educational framework that aims to foster the growth of computational thinking at early childhood stages, within the context of physical and natural science courses, pursuing the unplugged philosophy and following the principles of game-based, project-based and collaborative learning. This chapter also presents a relevant pilot study, conducted with second grade students of a Greek primary school, with the objective of assessing the feasibility of the proposed educational framework, as well as examining its effectiveness. The results stemming from the pilot are promising and reveal that the proposed approach serves our goal to enhance computational thinking at the first stages of schooling through engaging and fun educational activities that appeal to young students.

Socially Responsive Museum Pedagogy

Art museums in the United States have long been called upon to provide educational and engaging experiences for their visitors; more recently, this expectation has expanded to address the most salient needs of local communities and respond to issues of social inequality. At The Ohio State University's Wexner Center for the Arts, these collaborations are woven into the mission of the institution and serve as a foundation of its educational framework. In this chapter, the authors highlight specific community collaborations between the Wexner Center for the Arts, the Department of Arts Administration, Education, and Policy at Ohio State, and the Columbus, Ohio, community. They suggest that these programs not only individually serve as examples for other institutions and university students engaged in museum education scholarship, but also collectively form a socially responsive museum pedagogy enacted in an ongoing cycle of collaborative inquiry.

Postgraduate Education for Heads of General Secondary Education Institutions of Ukraine: History and Nowadays

Characterized the development of postgraduate education of heads of general secondary education institutions of Ukraine at different stages of its forming. It is found that the tasks set by the state leadership for the secondary school directly influenced the transformation of the content, forms and methods of professional development of managing teaching staff. The characteristic of modern conditions of organizing postgraduate education of heads of general secondary education institutions has been provided. Dynamics and characteristic features of transformation of the legal framework regarding education, updating and filling educational framework with new documents have been established. These documents summarize the qualification requirements and the structure of competences of modern heads of general secondary education institutions according to their functional responsibilities. The orientation of postgraduate education of heads (headmasters/headmistresses) of general secondary education to the general structure of professional competences defined in national standards and standard curricula has been substantiated. It is proved that the model of lifelong education for school headmasters/headmistresses requires its improvement in the direction of increasing the level of managerial training and development of professional competences of headmasters/headmistresses in a rapidly and dynamically renewed school education throughout the period of professional activity of the heads.

HYDRA: Introducing a Low-Cost Framework for STEM Education Using Open Tools

STEM education is of paramount importance, especially in the lower levels of education, and it has been proven beneficial for students in many ways. Although there are various tools available, there are significant drawbacks mainly related to the cost and the ease of use. In this study, we introduce a new low-cost educational framework oriented toward elementary and secondary educational needs. The proposed system exploits open tools and low-cost devices. The system’s core is based on the popular Arduino microcontroller, a low-cost device supported by a large community. The overall system was designed and developed, providing an expandable, modular system of low complexity suitable for students with no or low prior knowledge in related subjects, among others, to programming, embedded devices, sensors and actuators, as well as robotics. Our scope was to provide a system with a small learning curve. Practically, this makes it possible in a short amount of time for the students to perform appealing yet straightforward tasks which will boost their self-confidence and creativity, improve their technical skills and simultaneously provide a system with several capabilities usable in different kinds of projects. The introduced system was tested through a preliminary study using flow theory in a team of 68 students of the three last grades in an elementary school in Greece.

‘Thinking Through’ Games in the Classroom: Using Discursive Game Design to Play and Engage with Historical Datasets

In this contribution, we outline Discursive Game Design (DGD) as a practice-based educational framework, explain how to use this design framework to teach game historiography, and report on findings from a series of in-class experiments. Using Nandeck, a freely available software tool for card game prototyping, we created sets of playing cards based on two game-historical datasets. Students were then asked to prototype simple games with these card decks; both playtesting and co-creating each other’s games in an ongoing quasi-conversational process between different student groups fostered discussions on, and produced alternative insights into, the complex notion of (Dutch) game history, canonization/selection and games as national cultural heritage. The article shows how DGD can be implemented to allow for students with little or no design background to actively ‘think through’ games about the subject matter at hand.

The national system of financial monitoring training: Areas for development

Subject. This article deals with the issues of improving the professional competence and skills of financial monitoring specialists within the framework of enhancing the activities of the national anti-money laundering system (AML/CFT). Objectives. The article aims to identify the main areas of development of the national system of financial monitoring personnel training and the creation of an educational framework in this field. Methods. For the study, we used the systems approach, methods of comparative analysis, and the historical and logical unity principle. Results. The article offers recommendations to create an integrated educational space of the EAEU in the field of AML/CFT and the main directions of development and improvement of the Russian system of training and retraining of personnel in this area. Conclusions. In the context of the digitalization of the economy and the rapid development of financial technologies, it is necessary to constantly update the methods and tools for training personnel for the national financial monitoring system, including the expansion of cooperation between Russian universities and organizations that train and retrain AML/CFT specialists, as well as strengthening the positions of the International Training and Methodology Center for Financial Monitoring (ITMCFM) and the International Network Institute.

An Analysis of Students’ Computational Thinking Skills on The Number Patterns Lesson during The Covid-19 Pandemic

The development of the education curriculum in Indonesia makes students must have skills so that they can compete globally, especially in the 21st century. The development is closely related to technology and information. One of skills that support the development of technology and information is the <em>computational thinking</em> skills. This study aims to analyze students’ <em>computational thinking</em> skills on the number patterns lesson during the Covid-19 pandemic. This study was qualitative-descriptive research with the subjects of 4 students from 8th grade in Makassar. The instruments used in this study were a test of the <em>computational thinking</em> skills in the form of essay type test on the number patterns lesson and interview guidance. The results of this study indicated that all subjects met the first indicator of problem decomposition and one subject met the second indicator of problem decomposition, all subjects met the indicator of pattern recognition, three subjects met the indicator of abstraction and generalization, all subjects met the first indicator of algorithmic thinking and two subjects met the second indicator of algorithmic thinking on <em>computational thinking</em> skills. Thus, students’ <em>computational thinking</em> skills during the Covid-19 pandemic were still low, so an educational framework is needed to improve students’ <em>computational thinking</em> skills.

From apathy through anxiety to action: emotions as motivators for youth climate strike leaders

The climate strikes of 2019 motivated millions worldwide onto the street and provided a platform for youth voices that demanded global climate action. This article explores the experiences of climate strike leaders in Aotearoa New Zealand questioning the motivational factors behind the youth action. In-depth interviews with 15 climate strike leaders identified emotions that influenced engagement and could motivate action. Climate strike leaders reported experiencing a series of turbulent emotional stages from apathy to action. Their experiences suggest that anxiety and anger are important stages in the emotional journey towards action. Using Boler’s Pedagogy of Discomfort, this paper examines these emotional stages that can disable or enable action. Considering youth perspectives increases our understanding of a suitable climate change educational framework that potentially supports both educators and students on this challenging journey.

Developing a Simulation Model for Autonomous Driving Education in the Robobo SmartCity Framework

This paper focuses on long-term education in Artificial Intelligence (AI) applied to robotics. Specifically, it presents the Robobo SmartCity educational framework. It is based on two main elements: the smartphone-based robot Robobo and a real model of a smart city. We describe the development of a simulation model of Robobo SmartCity in the CoppeliaSim 3D simulator, implementing both the real mock-up and the model of Robobo. In addition, a set of Python libraries that allow teachers and students to use state-of-the-art algorithms in their education projects is described too.