During a relatively short period of time, programming has been implemented in the national curriculum of the compulsory school in Sweden. Since 2018, programming is a new content in the technology subject and the research field has discussed some of the challenges teachers and students, who generally have little experiences of programming, face…

Computer science is often integrated within early childhood education (ECE) through the use of educational robots. This requires adequate preparation of ECE teachers to program and debug, which can be done with scaffolding. In this paper, we use a QUANT + qual mixed method approach incorporating lag sequential analysis, ICAP framework coding,…

Many countries and regions have reached a consensus to promote science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the past decade. A body of studies have demonstrated that the design and organization of interdisciplinary teaching activities are important for the effective implementation of STEM education. So far, however, little…

In this qualitative study, preservice early childhood education teachers created block-based code to control robots and used the robots in field experience at local preschools. The study is grounded in a conceptual framework that weaves together playful programing and resilience, interlocking concepts that can explain sustained engagement during…

Tinkering is often viewed as arbitrary practice that should be avoided. However, tinkering can be performed as part of a sound reasoning process. In this ethnomethodological study, we investigated tinkering as a reasoning process that construes logical inferences. This is a new asset-based approach that can be applied in computer science…

The study aims to compare the effect of a structured versus an unstructured educational robotics (ER) curriculum on (a) the frequency and type of programming errors made by students in block-based programming, (b) their ability to debug a programme, and (c) their engagement in the learning process. The authors' hypothesis is that, in programming…

In this work, BEAM robotics is proposed to enhance the STEM knowledge and skills of engineering students in the electrical, electronic, and mechanical domains. To evaluate the proposal, a course is designed and implemented based on a curriculum with objectives and learning activities centered on the design, construction, and operation of the BEAM…

This paper focuses on a transdisciplinary research project in a historically underrepresented public school in Toronto, Canada. At the intersection of elementary science, technology, and arts-based curriculum, the project employs the feminist new materialist practice of "diffraction" (Barad, 2007) in an after-school robotics club.…

In this study, we investigated the debugging process that early childhood preservice teachers used during block-based programing. Its purpose was to provide insights into how to prepare early childhood teachers to integrate computer science into instruction. This study reports the types of errors that early childhood preservice teachers commonly…

Research Findings: Computational thinking (CT), which is defined as the systematic analysis, exploration, and testing of solutions to open-ended and often complex problems, is an important skill to foster in early childhood. However, little is known about teachers' role in fostering CT in early childhood classrooms. To address this gap, we…

Studies have indicated the importance of scaffolding in the problem-solving process, as well as the potential of integrating learning content into the troubleshooting tasks. However, few have explored in depth the learning process during troubleshooting via scaffolds while also taking students' cognitive load into account. To address this issue,…

In Robotics Education (RE), the hands-on experience with troubleshooting problems is seen as a good catalyst to enhance the participants' problem-solving skills. Based on the pedagogical technique of collaborative learning and pair programming, pair learning is an emerging and potential method in RE, which means that students collaborate in pairs…

The Troubleshooting Portfolios approach was developed at the Olathe Northwest High School in Olathe, Kansas. This approach supports integrated STEM and "informed design" thinking and learning, in which students: (1) use design strategies effectively; (2) work creatively and collaboratively in teams; (3) make knowledge-driven decisions;…

This paper presents the results of a micro-genetic analysis of the development of a creative solution arrived at by students working collaboratively to solve a robotics problem in a sixth grade science classroom. Results indicate that four aspects of the enacted curriculum proved important to developing the creative solution, including the…