Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Executive Summary.....................................................................................4
Introduction/Background.............................................................................6
Problem description (gap analysis)..........................................................7
Target Audience.......................................................................................9
Environmental Scan/Industry Trends......................................................9
Relevant Research.................................................................................10
Solution Description..................................................................................11
Goals of the Project................................................................................11
Learning Objectives...............................................................................12
Proposed Solution..................................................................................12
Learning Theories/Instructional Principles............................................13
Instructional Strategies and Justification...............................................16
Media Components................................................................................18
Anticipated Challenges..........................................................................19
Narrative for Design and Development.................................................20
Executive Summary
Coding, computational thinking, and computer programming are viewed by some
in education as the new literacy. Thought leaders and organizations are concerned
that students need these skills to succeed in a competitive global job environment.
Teachers need to understand and grasp this driving force in our culture which is
now connected with almost all daily activity in our modern lives. Teachers
without grasping the concepts and the ability to incorporate and create lessons in
their classroom will be doing their students a disservice and putting them at a
disadvantage. It is key for the teachers to see and the students to understand that
without this understanding they will be left behind and view everyday technology
as something to consume rather than something utilized to express their thinking
and creativity with. The intended capstone project will fulfill the needs of teacher
professional development while still allowing them the freedom to choose from a
plethora of tools and concepts to teach age appropriate computer science concepts
in their everyday curriculum planning and instructional design.
Keywords: computer science, elementary teachers, coding
Introduction/Background
In the current approaches to incorporating the Common Core State
Standards (CCSS) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in
education at the elementary level, the importance of computer coding and
computational thinking comes up often as a means of helping students meet the
skills and strategies they need. Fortunately, in todays current state of technology
there are many developmentally appropriate tools that can be utilized beginning in
Kindergarten up through the fifth grade that can help the students do just that. For
example, one skill that we are asking students to participate more in is reflecting
on their own thinking which Seymour Papert proposed computer programming
excels at (Papert, 1980). Coding is becoming the new lingua franca, like French
was in the 19th century, and English in the 20th, for the 21st century. In the
Cupertino school district, the need to meet the new NGSS has led to the need for
creating professional development modules for teachers on computer science and
coding. This is so that they can incorporate lessons in-between the regular Full
Option Science System (FOSS) and later other subject matter areas during the
course of the school year.
My MIST Capstone project will involve solving this need for students to
have access to coding and computer science concepts by helping to prepare
teachers to incorporate them in their classrooms. Teachers will be introduced to
coding concepts that can be taught in Kindergarten up through fifth grade by
looking at the scope and sequence, tools, and lesson plan ideas. Currently the
plan is to have a primary focus on what are called graphical interfaces for iPads
and computers as these allow for children to focus on what they are programming
by dragging blocks to a designated area of the screen. The blocks are combined
to create an action such as move a character on screen, play a sound, or make an
Target Audience. The target audience for this Capstone project will be
the elementary school teachers between the Kindergarten and fifth grade level.
There are approximately 800 teachers within the school district with about twothirds teaching at the above grade levels and the rest being composed of middle
school teachers (sixth to eighth). All the elementary school sites currently utilize
the FOSS science kits and the intention is to give teachers access to the training in
the four week break periods when the kits are returned to a central processing area
for replenishment of materials to be sent back to school sites. The belief is that
teachers can begin to incorporate coding and computer science skills into the time
slots that had been given over to science instruction.
Solution Description
Goals of the Project. The goal of the project is for teachers to shift their fears
and attitudes in a more positive direction on the difficulties of teaching computer
science in a kindergarten classroom up through a fifth grade classroom, and to
feel knowledgeable enough and empowered to introduce several computer coding
lessons during either the gap in the instructional day left by the absence of science
materials or within other subject matter instruction. The Cupertino district has
also directed that classrooms become in an indirect way more Constructivist in
nature. Included with this is the push for more student centered activities
including student choice, voice, critical thinking, problem solving, and selfassessment.
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Learning Objectives.
Teachers will after completing three of the modules construct a short age
appropriate computer science skills related activity that they can then complete
with their students in their classroom.
Teachers will after completing the learning modules identify several age
appropriate computer science skills with 85% accuracy.
Teachers will be able to identify tools that they can utilize in their classroom with
100% accuracy to teach computer science to their students.
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movement based objects that are controlled by computer code that has been
generated that is sent either via Bluetooth or USB cables to control some action
using movement, light, or sound. The third sub-module will be called Paper and
will look at and present ways to teach computer science concepts that use only
paper and a pencil.
The third module will be called Computational Thinking and will introduce the
learner to the four primary systems involved with solving problems via
decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, and algorithm design. The intent
is to show that students need to build up background knowledge in order to create
a computer program that solves some problem or challenge. The fourth module
will be called Lessons. This will have three sub-modules called language arts,
math, and science. Each module will present a short lesson or activity that is
complete and presents an activity that can be used for each of the content areas.
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socially constructed activities, and still guide the teacher to help the students to
create coding programs that apply to multiple subjects and include some form of
instructional guidance to introduce computer science programming concepts such
as loops, sequence, and variables.
Piaget will be influential and applicable to the capstone project for several
reasons. His ideas related to cognitive development and his stages of the
preoperational stage and the concrete operational stage will be important
especially as they may relate to assessments and how they may look or change
between the Kindergarten students up through the fifth grade (Portelance, 2015).
Overall his placing importance on the peer to peer interactions especially as they
relate to more open ended activities will need to be considered (Gredler, 2005).
Vygotsky is important as a representative of social constructivism in
regards to his zone of proximal development for the capstone project with the
consideration that each students developmental level will need to be considered
and that the peer interactions that will be promoted in the capstone project will be
based on the similar interests that will come about through the use of the
multimedia tools and the differences in abilities to interact with the tools based on
the childs previous exposure at home and at school (Portelance, 2015). The
instruction will be important in particular as it relates to having the teacher
drawing upon the students existing knowledge and then to take this knowledge to
help the students build new and further understandings (Toy, 2013). Also
Vygotsky while advocating for social learning placed a strong emphasis on
collaboration as being between the student and the teacher also called the ideal
form (Gredler, 2005).
Papert as stated previously is a key theorist when looking at computers
and programming. His early work with Piaget helped influence his thinking about
children becoming builders of their knowledge. Carrying this metaphor of the
children as builders even further he thought of them as like other builders,
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children appropriate to their own use materials they find about them (Papert,
1980, p. 19). And when looking in particular at coding and programming being
such an open tool with broad applications it makes sense that he would go on to
develop a language called LOGO for children to build with.
For constructivism the child is influenced by direct experiences from the
environment and social interactions with others. These experiences help to form
the childs schema which is constantly changing and evolving, but like an adult a
child will not just accept what is being told to them but must process and compare
the experiences. If a new and better perspective or theory replaces the old one,
then the child will evolve a new construction of the culture and objects in that
environment they find themselves in (Ackermann, 2001). The cognitive
development that happens as a result of overturning the older schema happens
according to Vygotsky in connection with the childs social and emotional
experiences as well (Gance, 2002). Ackermann views the importance for
teaching and learning as being threefold. First, teaching is always indirect,
meaning students dont just accept new information but must interpret it. Second,
the transmission model. . . wont do, information is not a one-way process in
which the learner is given the knowledge to memorize and retain. And third, A
theory of learning that ignores resistances to learning misses the point, meaning
children have good reason not to abandon their previously held knowledge
(Ackermann, 2001, p. 3). Constructionism then takes the internal processes of
gaining knowledge and cognitive development and emphasizes the importance of
externalizing what is learned through building externally through physical
materials a representation and application of the words and understanding for the
child. This allows them to to construct new relationships with knowledge in the
process (Kafai, 2006, p. 38). As Ackermann states, Papert helps us see how
ideas get formed and transformed when expressed through different media, when
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need to navigate. The second principle will be the modality principle so that there
will be audio based information to be connected with the visual use of graphics
and to again minimize the cognitive load. Another principle will be the
redundancy principle which will limit the use of audio and onscreen words
depending on if the vocabulary that will be introduced will need to be further
accessed by the students. The last principle to be considered will be the
personalization principle. With learners at the elementary school level the use of
a coach and companion to the content will help the students feel more connected
and vested in learning the programming concepts involved. There will be other
instructional theories considered but these the main instructional principles
considered at this point of time (Clark and Mayer 2011).
Because the Cupertino School board has adopted what can be considered
Constructivist concepts the use of these student centered strategies will be
important to show the teachers how they relate to a more effective understanding
on the part of students for computer science concepts and coding. There are
several basic strategies that can be used by a teacher in the classroom to utilize the
learning theory. The best approach involves authenticity, choice, and student
voice. The importance of authenticity is to give more significance to what the
students are trying to learn. Too often activities are for a standard but a child that
is constructing knowledge in the context of cultural information should be
learning something that is applicable to their culture. Choice is also very
important because within the multicultural environment that are found now in
many classrooms, there is no single path or set of objects that will help all
students and support their knowledge acquisition. Lastly, student voice is critical
to not only help the student better form their own understanding but also the other
students in the social environment that the learning is taking place in. To put it
succinctly, the best activities are those that offer, A significant problem tackled
by small groups of students promotes involvement, curiosity, and heightened
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research shows that the more a teacher is willing to teach from a constructivist
viewpoint the more successful the children will be in learning coding and
computational thinking skills. Another issue after thinking about the initial
analysis will be through trying to ask teachers to create activities for students who
have progressed through the concepts beginning in kindergarten and when getting
to the fifth grade modules have already had four years worth of programming
versus a student who is studying programming for the first time even though they
are in fourth or fifth grade.
The design of the learning modules will be relatively fast once a balance is
found between basing the training on Constructivist principles while still
capturing data from the teachers to show that the instruction has made a
difference. There will not be sufficient time to see if teachers actually complete
an activity since the districts expectation are usually done within a school year
cycle. Teachers would have accomplished the learning goal if they can complete
an activity with students by June.
The development will be the most challenging aspect of the project. Most
of this will be caused by lacking the technical knowledge to apply what has been
designed. The intention is to rely upon MIST instructors such as Dr. Lara,
Professor Challenger, and Professor Beem, when instructional videos or training
information does not adequately address the technical problems.
The instructional stage implementation should not pose any problems as
there are numerous teachers both at former school sites and via reference by the
technology department that would be enthusiastic to participate in learning about
coding and computer science. In a recent survey done with teachers, these
concepts were listed as a topic of interest to learn more about.
For the evaluation stage, and thinking about Kirkpatricks levels of
evaluation, there will be two types of evaluations done and neither should pose a
problem. The district typically relies upon a level one or learner reaction
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evaluation for most training. This evaluation would be based on the learners
reaction either positive or negative to the training. Teachers are treated at the
level of customers. The form will be in the form of a questionnaire with a
combination of open ended and closed ended questions with a rating scale. This
type of evaluation provides good information to improve the design of the
training. For the Capstone project a pre and post multiple choice and short
answer evaluation will be used.
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learner has all they need to then leave the Capstone project and be ready with
what they need has been completed.
The intention is to have the overall structure and navigation completed so
that the individual modules can completed as time permits and a demo of the final
project will show one example navigation through the content to appear to be a
completion of the activities.
Timeline/Progress Report
Milestones.
1. Finalizing of artwork styles and color schemes by 9/21/16
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Evaluation/Testing Plan
Formative Evaluation. The intention for the formative evaluation is to share
the URL of the modules to several teachers at the Meyerholz Elementary school
site at several grade levels to receive feedback. The intention is both to capture
data with a Google form as well as interview teachers face to face on the week
before the Thanksgiving break for the district. Information that is gathered can
then be analyzed during the week of 11/21 to 11/25 when on vacation.
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References
Brown, D. L. (1996). Kids, computers, and constructivism. Journal of
Instructional Psychology, 23(3), 189.
Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). E-learning and the science of instruction:
Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning. John
Wiley & Sons.
Gance, S. (2002). Are constructivism and computer-based learning environments
incompatible? Interface: The Journal of Education, Community and Values,
2(3). Retrieved from http://commons.pacificu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1019&context=inter02
Hansen, A. K., Dwyer, H. A., Hill, C., Iveland, A., Martinez, T., Harlow, D., &
Franklin, D. (2015). Interactive Design by Children: A Construct Map for
Programming. In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on
Interaction Design and Children (pp. 267270). New York, NY, USA: ACM.
Kafai, Y. B. (2006). Playing and making games for learning instructionist and
constructionist perspectives for game studies. Games and Culture, 1(1), 36
40.
Karadeniz, ., Samur, Y., & zden, M. Y. (n.d.). Playing with Algorithms to Learn
Programming: A Case Study on 5 Years Old Children. Icita.org. Retrieved
from http://www.icita.org/2014/papers/tr-Karadeniz.pdf
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