The global shortage of skilled programmers remains a persistent challenge. High dropout rates in introductory programming courses pose a significant obstacle to graduation. Previous studies highlighted learning difficulties in programming students, but their specific weaknesses remained unclear. This gap exists due to the predominant focus on the…

The design of algorithms is one of the hardest topics of high school computer science. This is mainly due to the universality of algorithms as solution methods that guarantee the calculation of a correct solution for all potentially infinitely many instances of an algorithmic problem. The goal of this paper is to present a comprehensible and…

This article offers the construct "unitizing predicates" to name mental actions important for students' reasoning about logic. To unitize a predicate is to conceptualize (possibly complex or multipart) conditions as a single property that every example has or does not have, thereby partitioning a universal set into examples and…

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a prominent topic in K-12 education recently. However, pedagogical design has remained a major challenge, especially among young learners. Guided by the Zone of Proximal Development theory and AI education research literature, this design-based study proposes an analogy-based pedagogical approach to…

Many students want to enroll in programming courses but fear the challenges ahead. They aspire to design quality systems or games after acquiring related skills but report concerns that programming logic is too difficult to learn because memorization of the syntax is required. Thus, they experience anxiety, are demotivated to learn, and,…

Spark, one of the products offered by MyQ (formerly Plethora), is a game-based platform meticulously designed to introduce students to the foundational concepts of computer science. By navigating through logical challenges, users delve into topics like abstraction, loops, and graph patterns. Setting itself apart from its counterparts, Spark boasts…

Introduction to Computer Science is traditionally the first course that all computer science and software engineering majors take. The course introduces many problem-solving techniques which can be challenging for many freshman students. In order to mitigate some of the issues of this course, we, at the Higher Education Institute, introduced a new…

Three years after Japan integrated "programming" into all elementary school subjects, questions remain on how policy is being put into practice in arts education. This article examines the current state of "programming" - activities addressing a local version of computational thinking - in music, with a focus on Japan's pending…

Contribution: This article proposes a new theoretical model with a goal to develop future human computational thinking (CT) in foundational computer science (CS) education. The model blends six critical types of thinking, i.e., logical thinking, systems thinking, sustainable thinking, strategic thinking, creative thinking, and responsible thinking…