How do Teachers Apply Computational Thinking Activities in Elementary School? From Continuing Education to the classroom

INTRODUCTION: There is no consensus of what skills can be developed from the learning of Computation Thinking (CT). However, teachers and researchers agreed that by the learning of CT individuals can acquire and expand many abilities. Courses have been carried out in Brazil and in other countries with the aim of motivating teachers on adding CT to classroom practices. OBJECTIVE: This article to present a case study that investigated the feasibility of introducing activities of CT for primary school children. Such activities were created and mediated by the teachers of Primary School. METHOD: First, a continuing education course about Computational Thinking was conducted with the participation of 14 teachers. The participants could understand the fundamentals of CT, and consequently, became able to planning and conducting CT activities by themselves in their classrooms. After, we analyzed the data gathered during the course under the quantitative and qualitative lenses. RESULTS: The results showed that the participants had a degree of agreement between 56% and 71% regarding the understanding and applicability of CT to developing skills in Primary School. The qualitative findings revealed that the participants could prepare activities that linked CT to topics presented in the subjects of Primary School. Besides, we could identify three patterns of shaping the activities in which this "computational think" were incorporated. CONCLUSION: Practices to stimulate the CT in students are mediated by using different teaching strategies as such Gamification and Culture Maker. These activities also enable the development of skills related to the National Curricular Common Base

A game proposal to develop Computational Thinking and environmental awareness

INTRODUCTION: Discussions around the development of Computational Thinking have demanded efforts to propose methods, techniques and tools that can assist in this process, especially in the school context. This paper deals with the development of an educational game with the theme "Environment and Sustainability" involving the pillars of Computational Thinking. OBJECTIVE: The game aims to assist the development of Computational Thinking by solving the problems to be solved in the missions of the heroine Sofia. The proposal for creating the game points out ways to create tools that work across curriculum themes. Tactics usually incorporated into the algorithmic language that permeate the problem solving processes in Computer Science be used. METHOD: The creation of the game followed a development process based on agile methodologies. The human cognitive structure was considered together with the intertwining between the games and the four pillars of Computational Thinking for the composition of an architecture applied to the game map. RESULTS: The evaluation of the game map regarding the "algorithmization" of the phases fulfilled the requirements regarding the location of the pillars (Decomposition, Pattern, Abstraction and Algorithm). The game, as an entertainment product, was evaluated using the E-Game Flow which pointed to acceptance by the evaluators (undergraduate students in the Computing area) and some suggestions for improvement were recorded. CONCLUSION: Games are presented as an important tool regarding the development process of Computational Thinking considering the engagement they can cause in their users and the possibilities of using their mechanics for directed learning.

Ten Years of Initiatives to Promote Computational Thinking: A Systematic Mapping of Literature

INTRODUCTION: Computational Thinking is a problem solving skill that became well known after Wing's article in 2006. Since then, several researchers have argued this way of thinking can be useful to all people, and much research has been done to promote the development of this skill with different audiences. OBJECTIVE: To discover the state of art of the initiatives carried out in the last decade to promote the development of Computational Thinking, inside and outside Brazil, regardless of the public addressed and the method applied. METHOD: A systematic mapping of the literature was carried out comprising three steps of selection of articles to proceed with data extraction and analysis of results. Three international databases and one national were included to search articles published between 2007 and 2017, in Portuguese and English. From a total of 468 articles, 46 were selected for data extraction and analysis. RESULTS: Mapping allowed us to answer seven research questions, showing, for example, that the USA and Brazil stand out in quantity of research. Additionally, they presented important differences between the duration of the research, target audience(s) and the tools used. We were able to identify that research has grown in number and diversity. Conversely, initiatives in multi and transdisciplinary contexts are still lacking, and little attention is paid to the public in less favored contexts. CONCLUSION: Computational Thinking is a growing topic of research and knowing the initiatives published in these 10 years of research helps in the elaboration of new research, mainly indicating opportunities to be explored. Especially for Brazil, it is necessary to approach students beyond basic education, to explore the transdisciplinary potential of Computational Thinking, and to carry out research of longer duration.

A report on strategies for motivating and developing the computational thinking for and by women

INTRODUCTION : Initiatives to engage girls and women in STEM-related areas have been successfully reported in the literature. However, such initiatives should involve the participation of the local community and address their needs and interests. OBJECTIVE : This article reports a project that aims to apply different strategies to motivate and teach computational thinking for women, led by students of Science and Technology at UFABC. METHOD : The methodology proposes three working branches: research (understanding the factors that discourage girls from the Computer Science course), outreach actions and teaching programming logic for women. RESULTS : Preliminary research revealed a female participation of less than 18% in all subjects of the course and a percentage lower than 15% of female graduates. The teaching actions had a total of 61 graduates. The events held (workshop and seminar) had about 80 participants. CONCLUSION : The actions of research, teaching, extension and dissemination of this project managed to engage more than 200 women and contemplate the interests of the internal and external community to UFABC. As future work, the initiatives will be extended to high schools in the region. The methodology should be consolidated and applied at the institutional level to include other STEM courses at UFABC.

Involving Users and Creating Symbols for Tangible Programming: a Case Study with TaPrEC

INTRODUCTION: Participatory Design is an approach that is characterized by the active participation of users as part of the design team, thus reflecting their perspectives and needs in the product design. BrainDraw is a participatory technique for use in the design phase of product creation. This article investigates the use of participatory practices with elementary school teachers, aiming at the redesign of the programming blocks of TaPrEC, a tangible programming environment for children. OBJECTIVE: This work aimed at the redesign of symbols for the repetition blocks of TaPrEC involving the main stakeholders. METHOD: A Case Study in an educational space that offers activities during out-of-school hours to children was carried out using the BrainDraw technique with a group of elementary school teachers to redesign the symbols of the repetition blocks of the TaPrEC. The experimentation and evaluation of the created symbols were carried out by the same teachers and a group of elementary school children. We also applied the Self-Assessment Manikin form to assess the participants' affective responses during participatory activities. RESULTS: The results of the workshops highlight that the symbols created by the teachers have been better accepted by teachers and children. This positive acceptance may result from the fact that the participatory solutions proposed by the teachers suggest associations with everyday elements such as traffic signs and the symbol of multiplication. CONCLUSION: Participatory Design is a process that involves researchers and end-users in creating products for their use. Using this approach, we studied different symbol proposals for representing and understanding the repetition blocks of TaPrEC, a tangible programming environment, to promote a solution that had the participation of stakeholders and reached a solution that made sense to them.

Linking Computational Thinking and BNCC in Primary School: a qualitative study on the perspective of teachers

INTRODUCTION: The incorporation of ways of developing computer skills in primary and secondary education has been a demand in some countries, and practice in others. Among these skills, Computational Thinking (CT) has the aim of working the ability to using mental processing to find out solutions to problems. National Common Curricular Base (BNCC) of Brazil, CT appears strictly applied to the curricular component of Mathematics and focused on the use of technologies. OBJECTIVE: This paper presents the connections between CT and the skills and the subjects found in BNCC. These connections were identified from activities which were created and applied by primary school teachers. METHOD: A practical continuing education course was carried out in which two groups of teachers who had to handle teaching activities that associated CT to BNCC. During the course, the participants were encouraged to create practical activities to be applied in their classrooms afterwards. In total, 33 activities were built by the participants. Later, these activities were examined, and some parts were coding following a qualitative analysis approach. RESULTS: As a result, we found out codes related to actions, concepts and processes that were connected to four subject areas of BNCC. CONCLUSION: Most of the participants had a preference to use unplugged activities and applied different teaching strategies. Additionally, we concluded that the CT is characterized as being a multidisciplinary topic and can be associated with different components of the curriculum. Even having struggled in some activities, we considered the participants could foster among their students the "computational think".

Computational Thinking and Digital Games: Developing Skills With Fun

INTRODUCTION: Several researchers consider the importance of Computational Thinking being presented and developed from the earliest years of basic education and, furthermore, that digital games can be one of the vehicles to introduce it to children in schools. However, before developing new game solutions for this purpose, it is important to recognize how games can actually contribute to develop Computational Thinking, as well as to identify which skills have been worked on. OBJECTIVE: In this sense, this article presents the synthesis of a systematic mapping, whose objective was to identify how digital games can be used to develop Computational Thinking skills. METHOD: The objective was met by a systematic literature mapping executed by two reviewers and an expert. RESULTS: It was possible to identify some games used to stimulate the development of Computational Thinking skills, as well as the mechanics used by these games. CONCLUSION: It has been found that puzzle games are most commonly used to develop skills in Computational Reasoning. It has also been observed that the abilities of Abstraction and Algorithmic Thinking are the main skills developed in these games.

A Contextualized Spiral Approach for Teaching Programming in IT Vocational Secondary Education

INTRODUCTION: Brazilian vocational high school education in Computing faces problems such as course failure and dropout, plus dropout from the programs, factors that directly contribute to the deficit of such professionals. OBJECTIVE: This paper reports an experience of a contextualized and spiral approach carried out with students of the technical program in Informatics. METHOD: The approach aims to facilitate learning and motivate students through the tools JES and PPlay, and the Python language. RESULTS: Learned lessons suggest the adequacy of Python as first language, and of contextualized activities, context reuse and challenges as factors contributing to motivation and learning. CONCLUSION: The use of contexts, languages and environments in sequential and spiral blocks fosters a more active posture of students regarding learning activities.