The objective of this research was to investigate the influence of both unplugged and plugged coding activities on the computational thinking skills of secondary school students. Using an experimental design with a pretest-posttest control group, the study indicated that students enhanced their computational thinking skills through engagement in…

Nowadays, the educational process is enriched with technological tools such as Arduino and Micro:bit. These tools offer both tangible and graphical interaction, however, widespread adoption by educators faces limitations. Many educators hesitate to utilize them, primarily due to lacking training. Therefore, this study examines educators'…

Learning to respond to a computer program that is not working as intended is often characterized as finding a singular bug causing a singular problem. This framing underemphasizes the wide range of ways that students and teachers could notice discrepancies from their intention, propose causes of those discrepancies, and implement interventions.…

The purpose of this quantitative non-experimental study was to evaluate the gender stereotyping in picture books from a classroom library collection that primary school students use for independent reading in the classroom. Using the Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade fiction books from the classroom library collection from Booksource, this research…

We describe a LEGO-compatible Internet of Things Technology (IoT) designed to enable elementary school students to learn about IoT by building their own smart, connected products. The Internet of Things is any network of physical devices that can share information over the internet. Using small, Wi-Fi enabled microprocessors, Grove sensors,…

This paper shares reflections and stories from a collaborative design process between the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab and a global network of community-based educators to develop a creative coding app called OctoStudio, which supports children and families to create and share interactive projects on mobile devices. The app…

In today's multimodal landscape, coding has a space in the elementary literacy curriculum. Coding and literacy have many parallels, which are described in further detail. The author also explains why coding should be integrated into the primary grades and the steps that teachers can take to implement coding in the literacy curriculum. The free app…

This study examined student learning outcomes from a middle school computer science (CS) curriculum developed through a researcher and practitioner partnership (RPP) project. The curriculum is based on students creating mobile apps that serve community and social good. We collected two sets of data from 294 students in three urban districts: (1)…

Despite the benefits of teaching computational thinking (CT) and applying coding tools in schools, many teachers feel unprepared to use these technologies. Hence, we introduced CT concepts and coding tools to pre-service teachers (n=36; 17 in online class and 19 in in-person class), equipping them with digital competencies through activities with…

There are increasing calls to introduce computational thinking in schools; the arguments in favor call upon research suggesting that even kindergarten children can successfully engage in coding. This contribution presents a cross-sectional study examining the coding practices and computational thinking of fifty-one primary school children using…

Problem-solving and critical thinking are considered important skills to be developed by students, and are supported by the development of Computational Thinking (CT) skills. This study investigated the collaborative development of CT skills in sixth grade students via a six week LEGO robotics program. This robotics program focused on the…

The aim of this study was to explore how the Coding as Another Language using ScratchJr (CAL-ScratchJr) curriculum, developed by Boston College's DevTech Research Group utilizing the ScratchJr app, impacted second grade students' computational thinking, coding skills, and reading comprehension. To accomplish this, the research team randomly…

Background and Context: Despite the increasing implementation of coding in early curricula, there are few valid and reliable assessments of coding abilities for young children. This impedes studying learning outcomes and the development and evaluation of curricula. Objective: Developing and validating a new instrument for assessing young…

This article reports on a research project that examined the ways that 10-year-old students, who were using Scratch for coding, engaged with mathematical ideas. Interactive software is emerging that has cross-curricula implications and facilitates thinking in rich, problem-solving environments. Scratch, a free-to-use graphical programming…

Due to benefits for teaching and learning, an increasing number of studies have focused on classroom dialogue and how to make it productive. Coding, in which the transcribed conversation is allocated to a set of features, is commonly employed to deal with the textual data arising from this dialogue. This is generally done manually and cannot…