Background: In the digital age, fostering young children's computational thinking (CT) and executive functions (EFs) through programming has emerged as a significant research issue. While unplugged programming activities are commonly adopted in preschools, robot programming activities have recently gained attention for the potential to enhance…

Several instructional approaches have been advanced for learning programming. However, effective ways of engaging beginners in programming in K-12 are still unclear, especially among low socioeconomic status learners in technology-deprived learning environments. Understanding the learning path of novice programmers will bridge this gap and explain…

Computational thinking (CT), as a new future-oriented literacy, has gained attention at the basic education level. Graphical programming is the common way to develop CT in primary students, but this drag-and-drop programming may weaken students' understanding of programming's abstract concepts and code logic. Text-based programming approaches can…

Geometric concepts are fundamental to early geometry education, and developmentally appropriate practices are crucial for teaching them to young children. Robotic coding is an effective tool in many areas of early mathematics and has significant potential in teaching geometric concepts. This study aimed to test the impact of a research-based…

Pair programming is an effective instructional format in programming education for adolescents. Within pair programming, three potential gender combinations may arise: Boy-Boy (BB), Girl-Girl (GG), and Boy-Girl (BG). This study explores the impact of different gender pairings on the programming self-efficacy and collaborative attitudes of…

Background & Context: Many efforts have been dedicated to building computer science (CS) teacher capacity through offering professional development (PD) programs. Previous reviews indicated the need to offer more continual support for teachers. Recent research has shifted its focus to scaling up PD and sustaining teaching capacity by…

The purpose of this research project was to design, deliver, and informally assess the content and methodology of an introductory online course for the educators of Deaf and Hard of Hearing students (N=20) that focused on the block-based coding language, Scratch. Prior work by The Playful Learning Lab examined various STEM resources and their…

Elementary school teachers are increasingly being asked to teach computer science (CS)--a subject area with which they often have little familiarity. To address this gap, teacher professional development (PD) is a common approach for helping teachers become familiar with CS content. This paper describes a collaborative PD designed to accompany a…

There were few papers for interdisciplinary integration of Scratch programming, English learning, and local cultures as far as the digital animated E-book creation of elementary schools was concerned. This article proposes an interdisciplinary innovative teaching mode, with college students as teachers, Scratch programming and English learning as…

Serious games are considered an effective method to engage students in programming education and have been increasingly used in classrooms. An important part of the learning process with serious games involves the presentation of the new concepts and the provided support to encounter student difficulties. Although the most common approach is the…

With the advancement in technology and the emphasis on computer science education, there has been a strong push for more widespread programming instruction at K-12 and higher education levels. Existing research has mostly focused on students at the secondary and post-secondary levels. Not much research has involved students at the elementary…

Gender balance in computing education is a decades-old issue that has been the focus of much previous research. In K-12, the introduction of mandatory computing education goes some way to giving all learners the opportunity to engage with computing throughout school, but a gender imbalance still persists when computer science becomes an elective…

Due to technological advancements, robotics is findings its way into the classroom. However, workload for teachers is high, and teachers sometimes lack the knowledge to implement robotics education. A key factor of robotics education is peer learning, and having students (near-)peers teach them robotics could diminish workload. Therefore, this…

Computational thinking (CT) has attracted significant interest among many educators around the globe. Despite this growing interest, research on CT and programming education in elementary school remains at an initial stage. Many relevant studies have adopted only one type of method to assess students' CT, which may lead to an incomplete view of…

This study examines group robotics' impacts on elementary students' attitudes toward music, attitudes toward group work, and music composition when they are composing music via a robotics platform in collaborative and cooperative groups. One hundred ninety-one students in fourth and fifth grades completed the music composing project over the…